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■i^h^s.ec^S 



A WEEK 



ON THE 



CONCORD AM MERRIMAC 

RIVERS 



.p BY ^1 

HENRY B. THOREAU 

AUTHOR OF "WALDEN," ETC. 



NEW YORK 

HURST & COMPANY, Publishers 

122 NASSAU STREET 



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ARGYLE PRESS, 

^^RINTING AND BOOKBINDING, 
265 i 267 CHERRY ST., N. Y. 

G FT 

ESTATE OF 

VICTOR S. CLARK 



Where'er thou sail'st who sailed with me, 
Though now thou climbest loftier mounts, 
And fairer rivers dost ascend, 
Be thou my Muse, my Brother, 



I am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore, 
By a lonely isle, by a far Azore, 
There it is, there it is, the treasure I seek. 
On the barren sands of a desolate creek. 



I sailed up a river with a pleasant wind. 
New lands, new people, and new thoughts to find 
Many fair reaches and headlands appeared. 
And many dangers were there to be feared ; 
But when I remember where I have been, 
And the fair landscapes that I have seen. 
Thou seemest the only permanent shore. 
The cape never rounded, nor wandered o'er. 



CONCORD RIVER. 



Beneath low hills, in the broad interval 
Through which at will our Indian rivulet 
Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw, 
Whose pipe and arrow oft the plow unburies, 
Here, in pine houses, built of new-fallen trees, 
Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell. 

Emerson. 

The Musketaquid, or Grass-ground River, though prob- 
ably as old as the Nile or Euphrates, did not begin to have 
a place in civilized history, until the fame of its grassy 
meadows and its fish attracted settlers out of England in 
1635, when it received the other but kindred name of Con- 
cord from the first plantation on its banks, which appears 
to have been commenced in a spirit of peace and har- 
mony. It will be Grass-ground River as long as grass 
grows and water runs here ; it will be Concord River only 
while men lead peaceable lives on its banks. To an extinct 
race it was grass-ground, where they hunted and fished, and 
it is still perennial grass-ground to Concord farmers, who 
own the Great Meadows, and get the hay from year to year. 
"One branch of it," according to the Historian of Concord, 
for I love to quote so good authority, " rises in the south 
P'lrt of Hopkinton, and another from a pond and a large 
cedar swamp in Westborough," and flowing between Hop- 
kinton and Southborough, through Framingham, and be- 
tween Sudbury and Wayland, where it is sometimes called 
Sudbury River, it enters Concord at the south part of the 
town, and after receiving the North or Assabeth River, 

5 



6 CONCORD RIVER. 

which has its source a little farther to the north and west, 
goes out at the northeast angle, and flowing" between Bed- 
ford and Carlisle, and through Billerica, empties into the 
Merrimac at Lowell. In Concord it is, in summer, from 
four to fifteen feet deep, and from one hundred to tliree 
hundred feet wide, but in the spring freshets, when it over- 
flows its banks, it is in some places nearly a mile wide. Be- 
tween Sudbury and Wayland the meadows acquire their 
greatest breadth, and when covered with water, they form 
a handsome chain of shallow vernal lakes, resorted to by 
numerous gulls and ducks. Just above Sherman's Bridge, 
between these tows, is the largest expanse, and when the 
wind blows freshly in a raw March day, heaving up the 
surface into dark and sober billows or regular swells, skirted 
as it is in the distance with alder swamps and smoke-like 
maples, it looks like a smaller Lake Huron, and is very 
pleasant and exciting to a landsman to row or sail over. 
The farm-houses along the Sudbury shore, which rises 
gently to a considerable height, command fine water pros- 
pects at this season. The shore is more flat on the Way- 
land side, and this town is the greatest loser by the flood. 
Its farmers tell me that thousands of acres are flooded 
now, since the dams have been erected, where they remem- 
ber to have seen the white honeysuckle or clover growing 
once, and they could go dry with shoes only in summer. 
Now there is nothing but blue-joint and sedge and cut-grass 
there, standing in water all the year round. For a long 
time, they made the most of the driest season to get their 
hay, working sometimes till nine o'clock at night, sedu- 
lously paring with their scythes in the twilight round the 
hummocks left by the ice ; but now it is not worth the get- 
ting, when they can come at it, and they look sadly round 
to their wood-lots and upland as a last resource. 

It is worth the while to make a voyage up this stream, if 
you go no further than Sudbury, only to see how much 



CONCORD RIVER. J 

country there is in the rear of us ; great hills, and a hundred 
brooks, and farm-houses, and barns, and hay stacks, you 
never saw before, and men everywhere, Sudbury, that is 
Southborough men, and Wayland, and Nine-i\cre-Corner 
men, and Bound Rock, where four towns bound on a rock in 
the river, Lincoln, Wayland, Sudbury, Concord. Many waves 
are there agitated by the wind, keeping nature fresh, the 
spray blowing in your face, reeds and rushes waving; ducks 
by the hundred, all uneasy in the surf, in the raw wind, just 
ready to rise, and now going off with a clatter and a whistling 
like riggers straight for Labrador, flying against the stiff 
gale with reefed wings, or else circling round first, with all 
their paddles briskly moving, just over the surf, to recon- 
noiter you before they leave these parts ; gulls wheeling 
overhead, muskrats swimming for dear life, wet and cold, 
with no fire to warm them by that you know of; their 
labored homes rising here and there like hay-stacks ; and 
countless mice and moles and winged titmice along the 
sunny, windy shore ; cranberries tossed on the waves and 
heaving up on the beach, their little red skiffs beating about 
among the alders ; — such healthy natural tumult as proves 
the last day is not yet at hand. And there stand all around 
the alders, and birches, and oaks, and maples full of glee and 
sap, holding in their buds until the waters subside. You 
shall perhaps run aground on Cranberry Island, only some 
spires of last year's pipe-grass above water to show where 
the danger is, and get as good a freezing there as anywhere 
on the Northwest Coast. I never voyaged so far in all my 
life. You shall see men you never heard of before, whose 
names you don't know, going awaj' down through the 
meadows with long ducking guns, with water-tight boots, 
wading through the fowl-meadow grass, on bleak, wintrv, 
distant shores, with guns at half cock, and they shall see 
teal, blue-winged, green-winged, shelldrakes, whistlers, black 
ducks, ospreys, and many other wild and noble sights be- 



5 CONCORD RIVER. 

fore night, such as they who sit in parlors never dream of. 
You shall see rude and sturdy, experienced and wise men, 
keeping their castles or teaming up their summer's wood, or 
chopping alone in the woods, men fuller of talk and rare 
adventure in the sun and wind and rain, than a chestnut is 
of meat ; who were out not only in '75 and 181 2, but have 
been out every day of their lives ; greater men than Homer? 
or Chaucer, or Shakespeare, only they never got time to say 
so ; they never took to the way of writing. Look at their 
fields, and imagine what they might write if ever they should 
put pen to paper. Or what have they not written on the 
face of the earth already, clearing, and burning, and scratch- 
ing, and harrowing, and plowing, and subsoiling, in and in, 
and out and out, and over and over, again and again, 
erasing what they had already written for want of parch- 
ment. 

As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as the work 
of to-day is present, so some flitting perspectives, and demi- 
experiences of the life that is in nature are in time veritably 
future, or rather outside to time, perennial, young, divine, 
in the wind and rain which never die. 

The respectable folks, — 

Where dwell they ? 

They whisper in the oaks, 

And they sigh in the hay ; 

Summer and winter, night and day, 

Out on the meadow, there dwell they. 

They never die, 

Nor snivel, nor cry, 

Nor ask our pity 

With a wet eye. 

A sound estate they ever mend, 

To every asker readily lend ; 

To the ocean wealth, 

To the meadow health, 

To Time his length, 

To the rocks strength, 



CONCORD RIVER. 9 

To the stars light, 

To the weary night, 

To the busy day, 

To the idle play ; 

And so their good cheer never ends, 

For all are their debtors, and all their friends. 

Concord River is remarkable for the gentleness of its 
current, which is scarcely perceptible, and some have re- 
ferred to its influence the proverbial moderation of the 
inhabitants of Concord, as exhibited in the Revolution, and 
on later occasions. It has been proposed that the town 
should adopt for its coat of arms a field verdant, with the 
Concord circling nine times round. I have read that a 
descent of an eighth of an inch in a mile is sufficient to pro- 
duce a flow. Our river has, probably, very near the small- 
est allowance. The story is current, at any rate, though I 
believe that strict history will not bear- it out, that the only 
bridge ever carried away on the main branch, within the 
limits of the town, was driven up stream by the wind. But 
wherever it makes a sudden bend it is shallower and swifter, 
and asserts its title to be called a river. Compared with the 
other tributaries of the Merrimac, it appears to have been 
properly named Musketaquid, or Meadow River, by the 
Indians. For the most part, it creeps through broad mea- 
dows, adorned with scattered oaks, where the cranberry is 
found in abundance, covering the ground like a moss-bed. 
A row of sunken dwarf willows borders the stream on one 
or both sides, while at a greater distance the meadow is 
skirted with maples, alders, and other fluviatile trees, over- 
run with the grape vine, which bears fruit in its season, 
purple, red, white, and other grapes. Still further from the 
stream, on the edge of the firm land, are seen the gray and 
white dwellings of the inhabitants. According to the valu- 
ation of 183 1, there were in Concord 21 11 acres, or about 
one seventh of the whole territory, in meadow ; this stand- 



16 CONCORD RIVER. 

ing next in die list after pasturage and unimproved lands, 
and, judging from the returns of previous years, the mea- 
dow is not reclaimed so fast as the woods are cleared. 

The sluggish artery of the Concord meadows steals thus 
unobserved through the town, without a murmur or a pulse- 
beat, its general course from southwest to northeast, and 
its length about fifty miles ; a huge volume of matter, 
ceaselessly rolling through the plains and valleys of the 
substantial earth, with the moccasined tread of an Indian 
warrior, making haste from the high places of the earth to 
its ancient reservoir. The murmurs of many a famous 
river on the other side of the globe reach even to us here, 
as to more distant dwellers on its banks ; many a poet's 
stream floating the helms and shields of heroes on its 
bosom. The Xanthus or Scamander is not a mere dry 
channel and bed of a mountain torrent, but fed by the ever- 
flowing springs of fame ; — 

And thou Simois, that as an arrowe, clere 
Through Troy rcnnest, aie downward to the sea ; 

and I trust that I may be allowed to associate our muddy 
but much abused Concord River with the most famous in 
history. 

So there are poets which did never dream 
Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream 
Of Helicon ; we therefore may suppose 
Those made not poets, but the poets those. 

The Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Nile, those journey- 
ing atoms from the Rocky Mountains, the Himalaya, and 
Mountains of the Moon, have a kind of personal importance 
in the annals of the world. The heavens are not yet drained 
over their sources, but the Mountains of the Moon still send 
their annual tribute to the Pasha without fail, as they did to 
the Pharaohs, though he must collect the rest of his revenue 
at the point of the sword. Rivers must have been the 
guides which conducted the footsteps of the first travelers. 



CONCORD KIVER. II 

They are the constant lure, when they flow by our doors, to 
distant enterprise and adventure, and, by a natural impulse, 
the dwellers on their banks will at length accompany 
their currents to the lowlands of the globe, or explore at 
their invitation the interior of continents. They are the 
natural highways of all nations, not only leveling the ground, 
and removing obstacles from the path of the traveler, 
quenching his thirst, and bearing him on their bosoms, but 
conducting him through the most interesting scenery, the 
most populous portions of the globe, and where the animal 
and vegetable kingdoms attain their greatest perfection. 

I had often stood on the banks of the Concord, watching 
the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, follow- 
ing the same law with the system, with time, and all that is 
made ; the weeds at the bottom gently bending down the 
stream, shaken by the watery wind, still planted where their 
seeds had sunk, but ere long to die and go down likewise ; 
the shining pebbles, not yet an.xious to better their condi- 
tion, the chips and weeds, and occasional logs and stems of 
trees, that floated past, fulfilling their fate, were objects of 
singular interest to me, and at last I resolved to launch my- 
self on its bosom, and float whither it would bear me. 



SATURDAY. 



Come, come, my lovely fair, and let us try 
These rural delicates. 

Invitation to the Soul. — Quarks. 



At length, on Saturday, the last day of August, 1839, we 
two, brothers, and natives of Concord, weighed anchor 
in this river port ; for Concord, too, lies under the sun, a 
port of entry and departure for the bodies as well as the 
souls of men ; one shore at least exempted from all duties 
but such as an honest man will gladly discharge. A warm 
drizzling rain had obscured the morning, and threatened to 
delay our voyage, but at length the leaves and grass were 
dried, and it came out a mild afternoon, as serene and fresh 
as if nature were maturing some greater scheme of her 
own. After this long dripping and oozing from every pore, 
she began to respire again more healthily than ever. So 
with a vigorous shove we launched our boat from the bank, 
while the flags and bulrushes curtseyed a God-speed, and 
dropped silently down the stream. 

, Our boat, which had cost us a week's labor in the spring, 
was in form like a fisherman's dory, fifteen feet long by 
three and a half in breadth at the widest part, painted 
green below, with a border of blue, with reference to the 
two elements in which it was to spend its existence. It 
had been loaded the evening before at our door, half a mile 
from the river, with potatoes and melons from a patch which 
we had cultivated, and a few utensils, and was provided 
with wheels in order to be rolled around falls, as well as with 
two sets of oars, and several slender poles for shoving in 

12 



SATURDAY. 13 

shallow places, and also two masts, one of which served for 
a tent-pole at night ; for a buffalo skin was to be our bed, 
and a tent of cotton cloth our roof. It was strongly built 
but heavy, and hardly of better model than usual. If 
rightly made, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal, 
a creature of two elements, related by one half its structure 
to some swift and shapely fish, and by the other to some 
strong-winged and graceful bird. The fish shows where 
there should be the greatest breadth of beam and depth in 
the hold ; its fins direct where to set the oars, and the tail 
gives some hint for the form and position of the rudder. 
The bird shows how to rig and trim the sails, and what 
form to give to the prow that it may balance the boat, and 
divide the air and water best. These hints we had partially 
obeyed. But the eyes, though they are no sailors, will 
never be satisfied with any model, however fashionable, which 
does not answer all the requisitions of art. However, as 
art is all of a ship but the wood, and yet the wood alone 
will rudely serve the purpose of a ship, so our boat being 
of wood, gladly availed itself of the old law that the heavier 
shall float the lighter, and though a dull water fowl, proved 
a sufficient buoy for our purpose. 

Were it the will of Heaven, an osier bough 
Were vessel safe enough the seas to plow. 

Some village friends stood upon a promontory lower 
down the stream to wave us a last farewell ; but we, having 
already performed these shore rites, with excusable reserve, 
as befits those who are embarked on unusual enterprises, 
who behold but speak not, silently glided past the firm 
lands of Concord, both peopled cape and lonely summer 
meadow, with steady sweeps. And yet we did unbend so 
far as to let our guns speak for us, when at length we had 
swept out of sight, and thus left the woods to ring again 
with their echoes ; and it may be that many russet-clad 



14 A WEEK. 

children lurking in those broad meadows, with the bittern 
and the woodcock and the i^ail, though wholly concealed by 
brakes and hardhack and meadow-sweet, heard our salute 
that afternoon. 

We were soon floating past the first regular battle ground 
of the Revolution, resting on our oars between the still 
visible abutments of that " North Bridge," over which in 
April, 1775, rolled the first faint tide of that war, which 
ceased not, till, as we read on the stone on our right, it 
" gave peace to these United States." As a Concord poet 
has sung : 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 
Here once the embattled farmers stood, 

And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept ; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

Our reflections had already acquired a historical remote- 
ness from the scenes we had left, and we ourselves essayed 
to sing. 

Ah, 'tis in vain the peaceful din 

That wakes the ignoble town, 
Not thus did braver spirits win 

A patriot's renown. 

There is one field beside this stream, 

Wherein no foot does fall, 
But yet it beareth in my dream 

A richer crop than all. 

Let me believe a dream so dear, 

Some heart beat high that day. 
Above the petty Province here, 

And Britain far away ; 



SATURDAY. 15 



Some hero of the ancient mold, 

Some arm of knightly worth, 
Of strength unbought, and faith unsold, 

Honored this spot of earth ; 

Who sought the prize his heart described, 

And did not ask release, 
Whose free born valor was not bribed 

By prospect of a peace. 

The men who stood on yonder height 

That day are long since gone ; 
Not the same hand directs the fight 

And monumental stone. 

Ye were the Grecian cities then. 

The Romes of modern birth. 
Where the New England husbandmen 

Have shown a Roman worth. 

In vain I search a foreign land, 

To find our Bunker Hill, 
And Lexington and Concord stand 

By no Laconian rill. 

With such thoughts we swept gently by this now peaceful 
pasture ground, on waves of Concord, in which was long 
since drowned the din of war. 

But since we sailed 
Some things have failed, 
And many a dream 
Gone down the stream. 

Here then an aged shepherd dwelt, 
Who to his flock his substance dealt. 
And ruled them with a vigorous crook, 
By precept of the sacred Book ; 
But he the pierless bridge passed o'er, 
And solitary left the shore. 



l6 A WEEK. 

Anon a youthful pastor came, 
Whose crook was not unknown to fame, 
His lambs he viewed with gentle glance. 
Spread o'er the country's wide expanse. 
And fed with " Mosses from the Manse." 
Here was our Hawthorne in the dale. 
And here the shepherd told his tale. 

That slight shaft had now sunk behind the hills, and we 
had floated round the neighboring bend, and under the new 
North Bridge between Ponkawtasset and the Poplar Hill, 
into the Great Meadows, which, like a broad moccasin 
print, have leveled a fertile and juicy place in nature. 

On Ponkawtasset, since, with such delay, 
Down this still stream we took our meadowy way, 
A poet wise has settled, whose fine ray 
Doth faintly shine on Concord's twilight day. 

Like those first stars, whose silver beams on high. 
Shining more brightly as the day goes by. 
Most travelers cannot at first descry. 
But eyes that wont to range the evening sky. 

And know celestial lights, do plainly see. 
And gladly hail them, numbering two or three ; 
For lore that's deep must deeply studied be. 
As from deep wells men read star-poetry. 

These stars are never pal'd, though out of sight. 
But like the sun they shine forever bright ; 
Aye, they are suns, though earth must in its flight 
Put out its eyes that it may see their light. 

Who would neglect the least celestial sound. 
Or faintest light that falls on earthly ground, 
If he could know it one day would be found 
That star in Cygnus whither we are bound. 
And pale our sun with heavenly radiance round ? 

Gradually the village murmur subsided, and we seemed 
to be embarked on the placid current of our dreams, float- 



SATURDAY. 17 

ing from past to future as silently as one awakes to fresh 
morning or evening thoughts. We glided noiselessly down 
the stream, occasionally driving a pickerel from the covert 
of the pads, or a bream from her nest, and the smaller bit- 
tern now and then sailed away on sluggish wings from some 
recess in the shore, or the larger lifted itself out of the long 
grass at our approach, and carried its precious legs away to 
deposit them in a place of safety. The tortoises also rapidly 
dropped into the water, as our boat ruffled the surface amid 
the willows, breaking the reflections of the trees. The banks 
had passed the height of their beauty, and some of the 
brighter flowers showed by their faded tints that the season 
was verging toward the afternoon of the year ; but this 
somber tinge enhanced their sincerity, and in the still un- 
abated heats they seemed like the mossy brink of some cool 
well. The narrow-leaved willow lay along the surface of 
the water in masses of light green foliage, interspersed with 
the large white balls of the button-bush. The rose-colored 
polygonum raised its head proudly above the water on 
either hand, and flowering at this season and in these locali- 
ties, in the midst of dense fields of the white species, which 
skirted the sides of the stream, its little streak of red looked 
very rare and precious. The pure white blossoms of the 
arrow-head stood in the shallower parts, and a few cardinals 
on the margin still proudly surveyed themselves reflected 
in the water, though the latter, as well as the pickerel-weed, 
was now nearly out of blossom. The snake-head, chelone 
glabra, grew close to the shore, while a kind of coreopsis, 
turning its brazen face to the sun, full and rank, and a tall 
dull red flower, eiipatorium purpiireuin, or trumpet weed, 
formed the rear rank of the fluvial array. The bright blue 
flowers of the soap-wort gentian were sprinkled here and 
there in the adjacent meadows, like flowers which Proser- 
pine had dropped, and still further in the fields, or higher 
on the bank, were seen the Virginian rhexia, and drooping 



l8 A WEEK. 

neottia or ladies'-tresses ; while from the more distant 
waysides, which we occasionally passed, and banks where 
the sun had lodged, was reflected a dull yellow beam from 
the ranks of tansy, now in its prime. In short, nature 
seemed to have adorned herself for our departure with a 
profusion of fringes and curls, mingled with the bright 
tints of flowers, reflected in the water. But we missed the 
white water-lily, which is the queen of river flowers, its 
reign being over for this season. He makes his voyage too 
late, perhaps, by a true water clock who delays so long. 
Many of this species inhabit our Concord water. I have 
passed down the river before sunrise on a summer morning 
between fields of lilies still shut in sleep ; and when at 
length the flakes of sunlight from over the bank fell on the 
surface of the water, whole fields of white blossoms seemed 
to flash open before me, as I floated along, like the unfold- 
ing of a banner, so sensible is this flower to the influence of 
the sun's rays. 

As we were floating through the last of these familiar 
meadows, we observed the large and conspicuous flowers 
of the hibiscus, covering the dwarf willows, and mingled 
with the leaves of the grape, and wished that we could 
inform one of our friends behind of the locality of this 
somewhat rare and inaccessible flower before it was too 
late to pluck it ; but we were just gliding out of sight of 
the village spire before it occurred to us that the farmer in 
the adjacent meadow would go to church on the morrow, 
and would carry this news for us ; and so by the Monday, 
while we should be floating on the Merrimac, our friend 
would be reaching to pluck this blossom on the bank of the 
Concord. 

After a pause at Ball's Hill, the St. Ann's of Concord 
voyageurs, not to say any prayer for the success of our 
voyage, but to gather the few berries which were still left 
on the hills, hanging by very slender threads, we weighed 



SATURDAY. I9 

anchor again, and were soon out of sight of our native 
village. The land seemed to grow fairer as we withdrew 
from it. Far away to the southwest lay the quiet village, 
left alone under its elms and button-woods in mid after- 
noon ; and the hills, notwithstanding their blue, ethereal 
faces, seemed to cast a saddened eye on their old play- 
fellows ; but, turning short to the north, we bade adieu to 
their familiar outlines, and addressed ourselves to new 
scenes and adventures. Nought was familiar but the 
heavens, from under whose roof the voyageur never passes ; 
but with their countenance, and the acquaintance we had 
with river and wood, we trusted to fare well under any 
circumstances. 

From this point, the river runs perfectly straight for a 
mile or more to Carlisle Bridge, which consists of twenty 
wooden piers, and when we looked back over it, its surface 
was reduced to a line's breadth, and appeared like a cob- 
web gleaming in the sun. Here and there might be seen a 
pole sticking up, to mark the place where some fisherman 
had enjoyed unusual luck, and in return had consecrated 
his rod to the deities who preside over these shallows. It 
was full twice as broad as before, deep and tranquil, with a 
muddy bottom, and bordered with willows, beyond which 
spread broad lagoons covered with pads, bulrushes, and 
flags. 

Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore 
fishing with a long birch pole, its silvery bark left on, and 
a dog at his side, rowing so near as to agitate his cork with 
our oars, and drive away luck for a season ; and when we 
had rowed a mile as straight as an arrow, with our faces 
turned toward him, and the bubbles in our wake still visible 
on the tranquil surface, there stood the fisher still with his 
dog, like statues under the other side of the heavens, the 
only objects to relieve the eye in the extended meadow ; 
and there would he stand abiding his luck, till he took his 



20 A WEEK. 

way home through the fields at evening with his fish. 
Thus, by one bait or another, Nature allures inhabitants 
into all her recesses. This man was the last of our towns- 
men whom we saw, and we silently through him bade adieu 
to our friends. 

The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and 
races of men are always existing in epitome in every neigh- 
borhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become 
the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, 
and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived. 
Perchance he is not confounded by many knowledges, and 
has not sought out many inventions, but how to take many 
fishes before the sun sets, with his slender birchen pole and 
flaxen line, that is invention enough for him. It is good 
even to be a fisherman in summer and in winter. Some 
men are judges these August days, sitting on benches, even 
till the court rises; they sit judging there honorably, be- 
tween the seasons and between meals, leading a civil politic 
life, arbitrating in the case of Spaulding versus Cummings, 
it may be, from highest noon till the red vesper sinks into 
the west. The fisherman, meanwhile, stands in three feet 
of water, under the same summer's sun, arbitrating in other 
cases between muckworm and shiner, amid the fragrance of 
water-lilies, mint, and pontederia, leading his life many rods 
from the dry land, within a pole's length of where the 
larger fishes swim. Human life is to him very much like a 

river, 

Renning aie downward to the sea. 

This was his observation. His honor made a great discov- 
ery in bailments. 

I can just remember an old brown-coated man who was 
the Walton of this stream, who had come over from New- 
castle, England, with his son, the latter a stout and hearty 
man who had lifted an anchor in his day. A straight old 



SATURDAY. 21 

man he was, who took his way in silence through the 
meadows, having passed the period of communication with 
his fellows ; his old experienced coat hanging long and 
straight and brown as the yellow pine bark, glittering with 
so much smothered sunlight, if you stood near enough, no 
work of art but naturalized at length. I often discovered 
him unexpectedly amid the pads and the gray willows 
when he moved, fishing in some old country method, — for 
youth and age then went a fishing together, — full of in- 
communicable thoughts, perchance about his own Tyne 
and Northumberland. He was always to be seen in serene 
afternoons haunting the river, and almost rustling with the 
sedge ; so many sunny hours in an old man's life, entrap- 
ping silly fish, almost grown to be the sun's familiar ; what 
need had he of hat or raiment any, having served out his 
time, and seen through such thin disguises ? I have seen 
how his coeval fates rewarded him with the yellow perch, and 
yet I thought his luck was not in proportion to his years ; 
and I have seen when, with slow steps and weighed down 
with aged thoughts, he disappeared with his fish under his 
low-roofed house on the skirts of the village. I think no- 
body else saw him ; nobody else remembers him now, for he 
soon after died, and migrated to new Tyne streams. His 
fishing was not a sport, nor solely a means of subsistence, 
but a sort of solemn sacrament and withdrawal from the 
world, just as the aged read their Bibles. 

Whether we live by the sea-side, or by the lakes and 
rivers, or on the prairie, it concerns us to attend to the nature 
of fishes, since they are not phenomena confined to certain 
localities only, but forms and phases of the life in nature 
universally dispersed. The countless shoals which annually 
coast the shores of Europe and America, are not so interest- 
ing to the student of nature, as the more fertile law itself, 
which deposits their spawn on the tops of mountains, and on 



22 A WEEK. 

the interior plains ; the fish principle in nature, from which 
it results that they may be found in water in so many places, 
in greater or less numbers. The natural historian is not a 
fisherman, who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely, 
but as fishing has been styled, " a contemplative man's rec- 
reation," introducing him profitably to woods and water, so 
the fruit of the naturalist's observations is not in new genera 
or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only 
a more contemplative man's recreation. The seeds of the 
life of fishes are everywhere disseminated, whether the winds 
waft them, or the waters float them, or the deep earth holds 
them ; wherever a pond is dug, straightway it is stocked 
with this vivacious race. They have a lease of nature, and it 
is not yet out. The Chinese are bribed to carry their ova 
from province to province in jars or hollow reeds, or the 
water-birds to transport them to the mountain tarns and 
interior lakes. There are fishes wherever there is a fluid 
medium, and even in clouds and in melted metals we detect 
their semblance. Think how in winter you can sink a line 
down straight in a pasture through snow and through ice, 
and pull up a bright, slippery, dumb, subterranean silver or 
golden fish ! It is curious, also, to reflect how they make one 
family, from the largest to the smallest. The least minnow, 
that lies on the ice as bait for pickerel, looks like a huge 
sea-fish cast up on the shore. In the waters of this town 
there are about a dozen distinct species, though the inexpe- 
rienced would expect many more. 

It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity 
of nature, to observe the still undisturbed economy and 
content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regu- 
lar fruit of the summer. The fresh-water sun fish, bream, 
or ruff, Pomotis vulgaris, as it were, without ancestry, with- 
out posterity, still represents the fresh-water sun fish in 
nature. It is the most common of all, and seen on every 



SATURDAY. 23 

urchin's string ; a simple and inoffensive fish, whose nests 
are visible all along the shore, hollowed in the sand, over 
which it is steadily poised through the summer hours on 
waving fin. Sometimes there are twenty or thirty nests in 
the space of a few rods, two feet wide by half a foot in 
depth, and made with no little labor, the weeds being re- 
moved, and the sand shoved up on the sides, like a bowl. 
Here it may be seen early in summer assiduously brooding, 
and driving away minnows and larger fishes, even its own 
species, which would disturb its ova, pursuing them a few 
feet, and circling round swiftly to its nest again ; the min- 
nows, like young sharks, instantly entering the empty nests, 
meanwhile, and swallowing the spawn, which is attached to 
the weeds and to the bottom, on the sunny side. The 
spawn is exposed to so many dangers, that a very small 
proportion can ever become fishes, for besides being the 
constant prey of birds and fishes, a great many nests are 
made so near the shore, in shallow water, that they are left 
dry in a few days, as the river goes down. These and the 
lamprey's are the only fishes' nests that I have observed, 
though the ova of some species may be seen floating on the 
surface. The breams are so careful of their charge that you 
may stand close by in the water and examine them at your 
leisure. I have thus stood over them half an hour at a 
time, and stroked them familiarly without frightening them, 
suffering them to nibble my fingers harmlessly, and seen 
them erect their dorsal fins in anger when my hand ap- 
proached their ova, and have even taken them gently out 
of the water with my hand ; though this cannot be ac- 
complished by a sudden movement, however dexterous, 
for instant warning is conveyed to them through their 
denser element, but only by letting the fingers gradually 
close about them as they are poised over the palm, and 
with the utmost gentleness raising them slowly to the sur- 
face. Though stationary, they keep up a constant sculling 



24 A WEEK. 

or waving motion with their fins, which is exceedingly 
graceful, and expressive of their humble happiness ; for 
unlike ours, the element in which they live is a stream 
which must be constantly resisted. From time to time they 
nibble the weeds at the bottom or overhanging their nests, 
or dart after a fly or a worm. The dorsal fin, besides 
answering the purpose of a keel, with the anal, serves to 
keep the fish upright, for in shallow water, where this is 
not covered, they fall on their sides. As you stand thus 
stooping over the bream in its nest, the edges of the dorsal 
and caudal fins have a singular dusty golden reflection, and 
its eyes, which stand out from the head, are transparent 
and colorless. Seen in its native element, it is a very 
beautiful and compact fish, perfect in all its parts, and looks 
like a brilliant coin fresh from the mint. It is a perfect 
jewel of the river, the green, red, coppery, and golden re- 
flections of its mottled sides being the concentration of such 
rays as struggle through the floating pads and flowers to the 
sandy bottom, and in harmony with the sunlit brown and 
yellow pebbles. Behind its watery shield it dwells far from 
many accidents inevitable to human life. 

There is also another species of bream found in our river, 
without the red spot on the operculum, which, according to 
M. Agassiz, is undescribed. 

The common perch, Perca JIavescens, which name de- 
scribes well the gleaming, golden reflections of its scales as 
it is drawn out of the water, its red gills standing out in vain 
in the thin element, is one of the handsomest and most reg- 
ularly formed of our fishes, and at such a moment as this 
reminds us of the fish in the picture, which wished to be re- 
stored to its native element until it had grown larger ; and 
indeed most of this species that are caught are not half 
grown. In the ponds there is a light-colored and slender 
kind, which swim in shoals of many hundreds in the sunny 
water, in company with the shiner, averaging not more than 



SATURDAY. 25 

six or seven inches in length, while only a few larger speci- 
mens are found in the deepest water, which prey upon their 
weaker brethren. I have often attracted these small perch 
to the shore at evening, by rippling the water with my fin- 
gers, and they may sometimes be caught while attempting to 
pass inside your hands. It is a tough and heedless fish, 
biting from impulse, without nibbling, and from impulse re- 
fraining to bite, and sculling indifferently past. It rather 
prefers the clear water and sandy bottoms, though here it 
has not much choice. It is a true fish, such as the angler 
loves to put into his basket or hang at the top of his willow 
twig, in shady afternoons along the banks of the stream. 
So many unquestionable fishes he counts, and so many 
shiners, which he counts and then throws away. 

The chivin, dace, roach, cousin trout, or whatever else it is 
called, Leuciscus pulchellus, white and red, always an unex- 
pected prize, which, however, any angler is glad to hook for 
its rarity. A name that reminds us of many an unsuccess- 
ful ramble by swift streams, when the wind rose to disap- 
point the fisher. It is commonly a silvery soft-scaled fish, 
of graceful, scholarlike, and classical look, like many a pic- 
ture in an English book. It loves a swift current and a 
sandy bottom, and bites inadvertently, yet not without ap- 
petite for the bait. The minnows are used as bait for 
pickerel in the winter. The red chivin, according to some, 
is still the same fish, only older, or with its tints deepened, 
as they think by the darker water it inhabits, as the red 
clouds swim in the twilight atmosphere. He who has not 
hooked the red chevin is not yet a complete angler. Other 
fishes, methinks, are slightly amphibious, but this is a deni- 
zen of the water wholly. The cork goes dancing down the 
swift rushing stream, amid the weeds and sands, when sud- 
denly, by a coincidence never to be remembered, emerges 
this fabulous inhabitant of another element, a thing heard of 
but not seen, as if it were the instant creation of an eddy, a 



26 A WEEK. 

true product of the running stream. And this bright cupre- 
ous dolphin was spawned and has passed its life beneath the 
level of your feet in your native fields. Fishes, too, as well as 
birds and clouds, derive their armor from the mine. I have 
heard of mackerel visiting the copper banks at a particular 
season ; this fish, perchance, has its habitat in the Copper- 
mine River. I have caught white chevin of great size in the 
Aboljacknagesic, where it empties into the Penobscot, at the 
base of Mount Ktaadn, but no red ones there. The latter 
variety seems not to have been sufficiently observed. 

The dace, Leuciscus argenieiis, is a slight silvery minnow, 
found generally in the middle of the stream, where the 
current is most rapid, and frequently confounded with the 
last named. 

The shiner, Leuciscus crysoleucas, is a soft-scaled and 
tender fish, the victim of its stronger neighbors, found in all 
places, deep and shallow, clear and turbid; generally the 
first nibbler at the bait, but with its small mouth and 
nibbling propensities Qot easily caught. It is a gold or 
silver bit that passes current in the river, its limber tail 
dimpling the surface in sport or flight. I have seen the 
fry, when frightened by something thrown into the water, 
leap out by dozens, together with the dace, and wreck 
themselves upon a floating plank. It is the little light- 
infant of the river, with body armor of gold or silver 
spangles, slipping, gliding its life through with a quirk of 
the tail, half in the water, half in the air, upward and ever 
upward with flitting fin to more crystalline tides, yet still 
abreast of us dwellers on the bank. It is almost dissolved 
by the summer heats. A slighter and lighter colored 
shiner is found in one of our ponds. 

The pickerel, Esox reticulatus, the swiftest, wariest, and 
most ravenous of fishes, is very common in the shallow and 
weedy lagoons along the sides of the stream. It is a 
solemn, stately, ruminant fish, lurking under the shadow of 



SATURDAY. 27 

a pad at noon, with still, circumspect, voracious eye, 
motionless as a jewel set in water, or moving slowly along 
to take up its position, darting from time to time at such 
unlucky fish or frog or insect as comes within its range, and 
swallowing it at a gulp. I have caught one which had 
swallowed a brother pickerel half as large as itself, with the 
tail still visible in its mouth, while the head was already 
digested in its stomach. Sometimes a striped snake, bound 
to greener meadows across the stream, ends its undulatory 
progress in the same receptacle. They are so greedy and 
impetuous that they are frequently caught by being 
entangled in the line the moment it is cast. Fishermen 
also distinguish the brook pickerel, a shorter and thicker 
fish than the former. 

The horned pout, Pimelodus nebulostcs^ sometimes called 
minister, from the peculiar squeaking noise it makes when 
drawn out of the water, is a dull and blundering fellow, 
and like the eel vespertinal in his habits, and fond of the 
mud. It bites deliberately as if about its business. They 
are taken at night with a mass of worms strung on a 
thread, which catches in their teeth, sometimes three or 
four, with an eel, at one pull. They are extremely tena- 
cious of life, opening and shutting their mouths for half an 
hour after their heads have been cut off. A bloodthirsty 
and bullying race of rangers, inhabiting the fertile river 
bottoms, with ever a lance in rest, and ready to do battle 
with their nearest neighbor. I have observed them in 
summer, when every other one had a long and bloody scar 
upon his back, where the skin was gone, the mark, per- 
haps, of some fierce encounter. Sometimes the fry, not 
an inch long, are seen darkening the shore with their 
myriads. 

The suckers, Catostomi Bostonienscs and iubercidati, com- 
mon and horned, perhaps on an average the largest of our 
fishes, may be seen in shoals of a hundred or more, stemming 



28 A WEEK. 

the current in the sun, on their mysterious migrations, and 
sometimes sucking in the bait which the fisherman suffers 
to float toward them. The former, which sometimes grow 
to a large size, are frequently caught by the hand in the 
brooks, or like the red chivin, are jerked out by a hook 
fastened firmly to the end of a stick, and placed under their 
jaws. They are hardly known to the mere angler, however, 
not often biting at his baits, though the spearer carries 
home many a mess in the spring. To our village eyes, 
these shoals have a foreign and imposing aspect, realizing 
the fertility of the seas. 

The common eel, too, Murcsna Bostoniensis, the only 
species known in the State, a slimy, squirming creature, 
informed of mud, still squirming in the pan, is speared and 
hooked up with various success. Methinks it, too, occurs 
in picture, left after the deluge, in many a meadow high 
and dry. 

In the shallow parts of the river, where the current is 
rapid, and the bottom pebbly, you may sometimes see the 
curious circular nests of the lamprey eel, Petromyzoti Ameri- 
caniis, the American stone-sucker, as large as a cart wheel, 
a foot or two in height, and sometimes rising half a foot 
above the surface of the water. They collect these stones, 
of the size of a hen's egg, with their mouths, as their name 
implies, and are said to fashion them into circles with their 
tails. They ascend falls by clinging to the stones, which 
may sometimes be raised by lifting the fish by the tail. 
As they are not seen on their way down the streams, 
it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste 
away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an 
indefinite period ; a tragic feature in the scenery of the 
river bottoms, worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare's 
description of the sea-floor. They are rarely seen in our 
waters at present, on account of the dams, though they are 
taken in great quantities at the mouth of the river in 



SATURDAY. 29 

Lowell. Their nests, which are very conspicuous, look 
more like art than anything in the river. 

If we had leisure this afternoon, we might turn our prow 
up the brooks in quest of the classical trout and the min- 
nows. Of the last alone, according to M. Agassiz, several 
of the species found in this town are yet undescribed. 
These would, perhaps, complete the list of our finny con- 
temporaries in the Concord waters. 

Salmon, shad, and alewives, were formerly abundant here, 
and taken in weirs by the Indians, who taught this method 
to the whites, by whom they were used as food and as ma- 
nure, until the dam, and afterward the canal at Billerica, 
and the factories at Lowell, put an end to their migrations 
hitherward ; though it is thought that a few more enter- 
prising shad may still occasionally be seen in this part of 
the river. It is said, to account for the destruction of the 
fishery, that those who at that time represented the inter- 
ests of the fishermen and the fishes, remembering between 
what dates they were accustomed to take the grown shad, 
stipulated that the dams should be left open for that season 
only, and the fry, which go down a month later, were con- 
sequently stopped and destroyed by myriads. Others say 
that the fish-ways were not properly constructed. Per- 
chance, after a few thousands of years, if the fishes will be 
patient, and pass their summers elsewhere meanwhile, na- 
ture will have leveled the Billerica dam, and the Lowell 
factories, and the Grass-ground River run clear again, to 
be explored by new migratory shoals, even as far as the 
Hopkinton Pond and Westborough Swamp. 

One would like to know more of that race, now extinct, 
whose seines lie rotting in the garrets of their children, 
who openly professed the trade of fishermen, and even fed 
their townsmen creditably, not skulking through the mea- 
dows to a rainy afternoon sport. Dim visions we still get 
of miraculous draughts of fishes, and heaps uncountable by 



30 A WEEK. 

the river-side, from the tales of our seniors sent on horse- 
back in their childhood from the neighboring towns, perched 
on saddle-bags, with instructions to get the one bag filled 
with shad, the other with alewives. At least one memento of 
those days may still exist in the memory of this generation, 
in the familiar appellation of a celebrated train-band of this 
town, whose untrained ancestors stood creditably at Concord 
North Bridge. Their captain, a man of piscatory tastes, 
having duly warned his company to turn out on a certain day, 
they, like obedient soldiers, appeared promptly on parade at 
the appointed time, but, unfortunately, they went undrilled, 
except in the maneuvers of a soldier's wit and unlicensed 
jesting, that May day ; for their captain, forgetting his own 
appointment, and warned only by the favorable aspect of 
the heavens, as he had often done before, went a fishing 
that afternoon, and his company was thenceforth known to 
old and young, grave and gay, as " The Shad," and by the 
youths of this vicinity, this was long regarded as the proper 
name of all the irregular militia in Christendom. But, alas, 
no record of these fishers' lives remains, that we know of, 
unless it be one brief page of hard but unquestionable his- . 
tory, which occurs in Day Book No. 4, of an old trader of 
this town, long since dead, which shows pretty plainly what 
constituted a fisherman's stock in trade in those days. It 
purports to be a Fisherman's Account Current, probably for 
the fishing season of the year 1805, during which months 
he purchased daily, rum and sugar, sugar and rum, N. E. 
and W. I., " one cod line," " one brown mug," and ''a line 
for the seine "; rum and sugar, sugar and rum, " good loaf 
sugar," and " good brown," W. I. and N. E., in short and 
uniform entries to the bottom of the page, all carried out in 
pounds, shillings, and pence, from March 25 to June 5, and 
promptly settled by receiving " cash in full " at the last 
date. But perhaps not so settled altogether. These were 
the necessaries of life in those days ; with salmon, shad, and 



SATURDAY. 31 

alewives, fresh and pickled, he was thereafter independent 
of the groceries. Rather a preponderance of the fluid ele- 
ments ; but such was this fisherman's nature. I can faintly 
remember to have seen the same fisher in my earliest youth, 
still as near the river as he could get, with uncertain undu- 
latory step, after so many things had gone down stream, 
swinging a scythe in the meadow, his bottle like a serpent 
hid in the grass ; himself as yet not cut down by the Great 
Mower. 

Surely the fates are forever kind, though Nature's laws 
are more immutable than any despot's, yet to man's daily 
life they rarely seem rigid, but permit him to relax with li- 
cense in summer weather. He is not harshly reminded of 
the things he may not do. She is very kind and liberal to 
all men of vicious habits, and certainly does not deny them 
quarter ; they do not die without priest. Still they main- 
tain life along the way, keeping this side the Styx, still 
hearty, still resolute, "never better in their lives" ; and 
again, after a dozen years have elapsed, they start up from 
behind a hedge, asking for work and wages for able-bodied 
men. Who has not met such 

a beggar on the way, 



Who sturdily could gang ? . . . . 
Who cared neither for wind nor wet. 
In lands where'er he past ? 

That bold adopts each house he views, his own ; 
Makes every pulse his checquer, and, at pleasure, 
Walks forth, and taxes all the worlds like Caesar. 

As if consistency were the secret of health, while the poor 
inconsistent aspirant man, seeking to live a pure life, feed- 
ing on air, divided against himself, cannot stand, but pines 
and dies after a life of sickness, on beds of down. 

The unwise are accustomed to speak as if some were not 
sick ; but methinks the difference between men in respect 



32 A WEEK. 

to health is not great enough to lay much stress upon. 
Some are reputed sick and some are not. It often happens 
that the sicker man is the nurse to the sounder. 

Shad are still taken in the basin of Concord River at 
Lowell, where they are said to be a month earlier than the 
Merrimac shad, on account of the warmth of the water. 
Still patiently, almost pathetically, with instinct not to be 
discouraged, not to be reasoned with, revisiting their old 
haunts, as if their stern fates would relent, and still met by 
the Corporation with its dam. Poor shad ! where is thy 
redress ? When Nature gave thee instinct, gave she thee 
the heart to bear thy fate ? Still wandering the sea" in thy 
scaly armor to inquire humbly at the mouths of rivers if 
man has perchance left them free for thee to enter. By 
countless shoals loitering uncertain meanwhile, merely 
stemming the tide there, in danger from sea foes in spite of 
thy bright armor, awaiting new instructions, until the sands, 
until the water itself, tell thee if it be so or not. Thus by 
whole migrating nations, full of instinct, which is thy faith, 
in this backward spring, turned adrift, and perchance 
knowest not where men do not dwell, where there are not 
factories, in these days. Armed with no sword, no electric 
shock, but mere shad, armed only with innocence and a 
just cause, with tender dumb mouth only forward, and 
scales easy to be detached. I for one am with thee, and 
who knows what may avail a crow-bar against that Billerica 
dam ? — Not despairing when whole myriads have gone to 
feed those sea monsters during thy suspense, but still 
brave, indifferent, on easy fin there, like shad reserved for 
higher destinies. Willing to be decimated for man's behoof 
after the spawning season. Away with the superficial and 
selfish ^\\\\-anthropy of men, — who knows what admirable 
virtue of fishes may be below low-water mark, bearing up 
against a hard destiny, not admired by that fellow-creature 
who alone can appreciate it ! Who hears the fishes when 



SATURDAY. 33 

they cry? It will not be forgotten by some memory that 
we were contemporaries. Thou shalt ere long have thy 
way up the rivers, up all the rivers of the globe, if I am not 
mistaken. Yea, even thy dull watery dream shall be more 
than realized. If it were not so, but thou wert to be over- 
looked at first and at last, then would I not take their 
heaven. Yes, I say so, who think I know better than thou 
canst. Keep a stiff fin then, and stem all the tides thou 
mayest meet. 

At length it would seem that the interests, not of the 
fishes only, but of the men of Wayland, of Sudbury, of Con- 
cord, demand the leveling of that dam. Innumerable acres 
of meadow are waiting to be made dry land, wild native 
grass to give place to English. The farmers stand with 
scythes whet, waiting the subsiding of the waters, by gravi- 
tation, by evaporation or otherwise, but sometimes their 
eyes do not rest, their wheels do not roll, on the quaking 
meadow ground during the haying season at all. So many 
sources of wealth inaccessible. They rate the loss hereby 
incurred in the single town of Wayland alone as equal to 
the expense of keeping a hundred yoke of oxen the year 
round. One year, as I learn, not long ago, the farmers 
standing ready to drive their teams afield as usual, the 
water gave no signs of falling; without new attraction in 
the heavens, without freshet or visible cause, still standing 
stagnant at an unprecedented height. All hydrometers 
were at fault ; some trembled for their English even. But 
speedy emissaries revealed the unnatural secret, in the new 
float-board, wholly a foot in width, added to their already 
too high privileges by the dam proprietors. The hundred 
yoke of oxen, meanwhile, standing patient, gazing wishfully 
meadowward at that inaccessible waving native grass, un- 
cut but by the great mower Time, who cuts so broad a 
swathe, without so much as a wisp to wind about their 
horns. 



34 A WEEK. 

That was a long pull from Ball's Hill to Carlisle Bridge, 
sitting with our faces to the south, a slight breeze rising 
from the north, but nevertheless water still runs and grass 
grows, for now, having passed the bridge between Carlisle 
and Bedford, we see men ha3ang far off in the meadow 
their heads waving like the grass which they cut. In the 
distance the wind seemed to bend all alike. As the night 
stole over, such a freshness was wafted across the meadow 
that every blade of cut-grass seemed to teem with life. 
Faint, purple clouds began to be reflected in the water, and 
the cow-bells tinkled louder along the banks, while, like 
sly water-rats, we stole along nearer the shore, looking for 
a place to pitch our camp. 

At length, when we had made about seven miles, as far 
as Billerica, we moored our boat on the west side of a little 
rising ground which in the spring forms an island in the 
river. Here we found huckleberries still hanging upon the 
bushes, where they seemed to have slowly ripened for our 
especial use. Bread and sugar, and cocoa boiled in river 
water, made our repast, and as we had drank in the fluvial 
prospect all day, so now we took a draught of the water 
with our evening meal to propitiate the river gods, and 
whet our vision for the sights it was to behold. The sun 
vi^as setting on the one hand, while our eminence was con- 
tributing its shadow to the night on the other. It seemed 
insensibly to grow lighter as the night shut in, and a dis- 
tant and solitary farm-house was revealed, which before 
lurked in the shadows of the noon. There was no other 
house in sight, nor any cultivated field. To the right and 
left, as far as the horizon, were straggling pine woods with 
their plumes against the sky, and across the river were rug- 
ged hills, covered with shrub oaks, tangled with grape 
vines and ivy, with here and there a gray rock jutting out 
from the maze. The sides of these cliffs, though a quarter 
of a mile distant, were almost heard to rustle while we 



SATURDAY 35 

looked at them, it was such a leafy wilderness ; a place for 
fauns and satyrs, and where bats hung all day to the rocks, 
and at evening flitted over the water, and fireflies hus- 
banded their light under the grass and leaves against the 
night. When we had pitched our tent on the hillside, a 
few rods from the shore, we sat looking through its trian- 
gular door in the twilight at our lonely mast on the shore, 
just seen above the alders, and hardly yet come to a stand- 
still from the swaying of the stream ; the first encroach- 
ment of commerce on this land. There was our port, our 
Ostia. That straight geometrical line against the water 
and the sky stood for the last refinements of civiHzed life, 
and what of sublimity there is in history was there sym- 
bolized. 

For the most part, there was no recognition of human 
life in the night, no human breathing was heard, only the 
breathing of the wind. As we sat up, kept awake by the 
novelty of our situation, we heard at intervals foxes step- 
ping about over the dead leaves, and brushing the dewy 
grass close to our tent, and once a musquash fumbling 
among the potatoes and melons in our boat, but when we 
hastened to the shore we could detect only a ripple in the 
water ruffling the disk of a star. At intervals we were 
serenaded by the song of a dreaming sparrow or the throt- 
tled cry of an owl, but after each sound which near at 
hand broke the stillness of the night, each crackling of the 
twigs, or rustling among the leaves, there was a sudden 
pause, and deeper and more conscious silence, as if the 
intruder were aware that no life was rightfully abroad at 
that hour. There was a fire in Lowell, as we judged, this 
night, and we saw the horizon blazing, and heard the dis- 
tant alarm bells, as it were a faint tinkling music borne to 
these woods. But the most constant and memorable sound 
of a summer's night, which we did not fail to hear every 
night afterward, though at no time so incessantly and so 



^6 A WEEK. 

favorably as now, was the barking of the house clogs, from 
the loudest and hoarsest bark to the faintest aerial palpita- 
tion under the eaves of heaven, from the patient but anxious 
mastiff to the timid and wakeful terrier, at first loud and 
rapid, then faint and slow, to be imitated only in a whisper ; 

wow-wow-wow-wow — wo wo w w. Even in a 

retired and uninhabited district like this, it was a sufficiency 
of sound for the ear of night, and more impressive than 
any music. I have heard the voice of a hound, just before 
daylight, while the stars were shining, from over the woods 
and river far in the horizon, when it sounded as sweet and 
melodious as an instrument. The hounding of a dog pur- 
suing a fox or other animal in the horizon, may have first 
suggested the notes of the hunting horn to alternate with 
and relieve the lungs of the dog. This natural bugle long 
resounded in the woods of the ancient world before the 
horn was invented. The very dogs that sullenly bay the 
moon from farm-yards in these nights, excite more heroism 
in our breasts than all the civil exhortations or war sermons 
of the age. " I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon," 
than many a Roman that I know. The night is equally 
indebted to the clarion of the cock, with wakeful hope, 
from the very setting of the sun, prematurely ushering in 
the dawn. All these sounds, the crowing of cocks, the 
baying of dogs, and the hum of insects at noon, are the 
evidence of nature's health or i-^//;/^ state. Such is the 
never failing beauty and accuracy of language, the most 
perfect art in the world ; the chisel of a thousand years 
retouches it. 

At length the antepenultimate and drowsy hours drew 
on, and all sounds were denied entrance to our ears. 

Who sleeps by day and walks by night, 
Will meet no spirit but some sprite. 



SUNDAY. 



The river calmly flows, 
Through shining banks, through lonely glen, 
Where the owl shrieks, though ne'er the cheer of men 

Has stirred its mute repose. 
Still if you should walk there, you would go there again. 

Ckanning. 
The Indians tell us of a beautiful river lying far to the south, which 
they call Merrimac. — Sieiir de Mauts, Relations of the Jesuits, 1604. 



In the morning the river and adjacent country were 
covered with a dense fog, through which the smoke of our 
fire curled up like a still subtiler mist ; but before we had 
rowed many rods, the sun arose and the fog rapidly dis- 
persed, leaving a slight steam only to curl along the surface 
of the water. It was a quiet Sunday morning, with more of 
the auroral rosy and white than of the yellow light in it, as 
if it dated from earlier than the fall of man, and still 
preserved a heathenish integrity : 

An early unconverted saint, 

Free from noontide or evening taint, 

Heathen without reproaeh. 

That did upon the civil day encroach, 

And ever since its birth 

Had trod the outskirts of the earth. 

l^ut the impressions which the morning makes vanish 
with its dews, and not even the most " persevering mortal " 
can preserve the memory of its freshness to mid-day. As 
we passed the various islands, or what were islands in the 
spring, rowing with our backs down stream, we gave names 
to them. The one on which we had camped we called Fox 

37 



38 A WEEK. 

Island, and one fine densely wooded island surrounded by 
deep water and overrun by grape vines, which looked like a 
mass of verdure and of flowers cast upon the waves, we 
named Grape Island. From Ball's Hill to Billerica meeting- 
house, the river was still twice as broad as in Concord, 
a deep, dark, and dead stream, flowing between gentle hills 
and sometimes cliffs, and well wooded all the way. It was 
a long woodland lake bordered with willows. For long 
reaches we could see neither house nor cultivated field, nor 
any sign of the vicinity of man. Now we coasted along 
some shallow shore by the edge of a dense palisade of 
bulrushes, which straightly bounded the water as if clipped 
by art, reminding us of the reed forts of the East Indians, of 
which we had read; and now the bank slightly raised was 
overhung with graceful grasses and various species of 
brake, whose downy stems stood closely grouped and naked 
as in a vase, while their heads spread several feet on either 
side. The dead limbs of the willow were rounded and 
adorned by the climbing mikania, mikania scandens, which 
filled every crevice in the leafy bank, contrasting agreeably 
with the gray bark of its supporter and the balls of the 
button-bush. The water willow, salix Ptirshiana, when it is 
of large size and entire, is the most graceful and ethereal of 
our trees. Its masses of light green foliage, piled one 
upon another to the height of twenty or thirty feet, seemed 
to float on the surface of the water, while the slight gray 
stems and the shore were hardly visible between them. No 
tree is so wedded to the water, and harmonizes so well with 
still streams. It is even more graceful than the weeping 
willow, or any pendulous trees, which dip their branches in 
the stream instead of being buoyed up by it. Its limbs 
curved outward over the surface as if attracted by it. It 
had not a New England, but an Oriental character, 
reminding us of trim Persian gardens, of Haroun Al 
Raschid, and the artificial lakes of the East. 



SUNDAY. 39 

As we thus dipped our way along between fresh masses 
of foliage overrun with the grape and smaller flowering vines, 
the surface was so calm, and both air and water so trans- 
parent, that the flight of a kingfisher or robin over the river 
was as distinctly seen reflected in the water below as in the 
air above. The birds seemed to flit through submerged 
groves, alighting on the yielding sprays, and their clear 
notes to come up from below. We were uncertain whether 
the water floated the land, or the land held the water in its 
bosom. It was such a season, in short, as that in which one 
of our Concord poets sailed on its stream, and sung its 
quiet glories. 

There is an inward voice, that in the stream 

Sends forth its spirit to the listening ear, 

And in a calm content it floweth on, 

Like wisdom, welcome with its own respect. 

Clear in its breasts lie all these beauteous thoughts, 

It doth receive the green and graceful trees, 

And the gray rocks smile in its peaceful arms. 

And more he sung, but too serious for our page. For every 
oak and birch, too, growing on the hill-top, as well as for these 
elms and willows, we knew that there was a graceful ethe- 
real and ideal tree making down from the roots, and some- 
times nature in high tides brings her mirror to its foot and 
makes it visible. The stillness was intense and almost con- 
scious, as if it were a natural Sabbath. The air was so 
elastic and crystalline that it had the same effect on the 
landscape that a glass has on a picture, to give it an ideal re- 
moteness and perfection. The landscape was clothed in a 
mild and quiet light, in which the woods and fences check- 
ered and partitioned it with new regularity, and rough and 
uneven fields stretched away with lawn-like smoothness to 
the horizon, and the clouds, finely distinct and picturesque, 
seemed a fit drapery to hang over fairy-land. The world 
seemed decked for some holiday or prouder pageantry, with 



4° A WEEK. 

silken streamers flying, and the course of our lives to wind 
on before us like a green lane into a country maze, at the 
season when fruit trees are in blossom. 

Why should not our whole life and its scenery be actually 
thus fair and distinct ? All our lives want a suitable back- 
ground. They should at least, like the life of the anchorite, 
be as impressive to behold as objects in the desert, a bro- 
ken shaft or crumbling mound against a limitless horizon. 
Character always secures for itself this advantage, and is 
thus distinct and unrelated to near or trivial objects, whether 
things or persons. On this same stream a maiden once 
sailed in my boat, thus unattended but by invisible guard- 
ians, and as she sat in the prow there was nothing but her- 
self between the steersman and the sky. I could then say 
with the poet : 

Sweet falls the summer air 
Over her frame who sails with me ; 
Her way like that is beautifully free, 

Her nature far more rare, 
And is her constant heart of virgin purity. 

At evening still the very stars seem but this maiden's emis- 
saries and reporters of her progress. 

Low in the eastern sky 
Is set thy glancing eye ; 
And though its gracious light 
Ne'er riseth to my sight. 
Yet every star that climbs 
Above the gnarled limbs 

Of yonder hill, 
Conveys thy gentle will. 

Believe I knew thy thought. 
And that the zephyrs brought 
Thy kindest wishes through, 
As mine they bear to you, 
That some atlentive cloud 
Did pause amid the crowd 



SUNDAY. 41 

Over my head, 
While gentle things were said. 

Believe the thrushes sung, 
And that the flower bells grun, 
That herbs exhaled their scent, 
And beasts knew what was meant, 
The trees a welcome waved, 
And lakes their margins laved. 

When thy free mind 
To my retreat did wind. 

It was a summer eve. 
The air did gently heave, 
While yet a low hung cloud 
Thy eastern skies did shroud ; 
The lightning's silent gleam, 
Starthng my drowsy dream, 

Seemed like the flash 
Under thy dark eyelash. 

Still will I strive to be 
As if thou wert with me ; 
Whatever path I take, 
It shall be for thy sake. 
Of gentle slope and wide, 
As thou wert by my side. 

Without a root 
To trip thy gentle foot. 

I'll walk with gentle pace, 
And choose the smoothest place, 
And careful dip the oar, 
And shun the winding shore, 
And gently steer my boat 
Where water lilies float. 

And cardinal flowers 
Stand in their sylvan bowers. 



It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat the 
mirror-like surface of the water, in which every twig and 
blade of grass was so faithfully reflected ; too faithfully, in- 



42 A AVEb.K. 

deed, for art to imitate, for onlyn ature may exaggerate her- 
self. The shallowest still water is unfathomable. Wher- 
ever the trees and skies are reflected, there is more than At- 
lantic depth, and no danger of fancy running aground. We 
noticed that it required a separate intention of the eye, a 
more free and abstracted vision, to see the reflected trees 
and sky than to see the river bottom merely ; and so are 
there manifold visions in the direction of every object, and 
even the most opaque reflect the heavens from their sur- 
face. Some men have their eyes naturally intended to the 
one, and some to the other object. 

A man that looks on glass, 

On it may stay his eye, 
Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass. 

And the heavens espy. 

Two men in a skiff, whom we passed hereabouts, floating 
buoyantly amid the reflections of the trees, like a feather 
in mid-air, or a leaf which is wafted gently from its twig to 
the water without turning over, seemed still in their element, 
and to have very delicately availed themselves of the natural 
laws. Their floating there was a beautiful and successful 
experiment in natural philosophy, and it served to ennoble 
in our eyes the art of navigation, for as birds fly and fishes 
swim, so these men sailed. It reminded us how much fairer 
and nobler all the actions of man might be, and that our 
life in its whole economy might be as beautiful as the fairest 
works of art or nature. 

The sun lodged on the old gray cliffs, and glanced from 
every pad ; the bulrushes and flags seemed to rejoice in the 
delicious light and air ; the meadows were a drinking at 
their leisure ; the frogs sat meditating, all Sabbath thoughts, 
summing up their week, with one eye out on the golden sun, 
and one toe upon a reed, eyeing the wondrous universe in 
which they act their part ; the fishes swam more staid and 



SUNDAY. 43 

soberly, as maidens go to church ; shoals of golden and sil- 
ver minnows rose to the surface to behold the heavens, and 
then sheered off into more somber aisles ; they swept by as 
if moved by one mind, continually gliding past each other, 
and yet preserving the form of their battalion unchanged, as 
if they were still embraced by the transparent membrane 
which held the spawn ; a young band of brethren and sisters, 
trying their new fins ; now they wheeled, now shot ahead, 
and when we drove them to the shore and cut them off, they 
dexterously tacked and passed underneath the boat. Over 
the old wooden bridges no traveler crossed, and neither the 
river nor the fishes avoided to glide between the abutments. 
Hare was a village not far off behind the woods, Billerica, 
settled not long ago, and the children still bear the names of 
the first settlers in this late " howling wilderness" ; yet to all 
intents and purposes it is as old as Fernay or as Mantua, an 
old gray town, where men grow old and sleep already under 
moss-grown monuments, — outgrow their usefulness. This 
is ancient Billerica (Villarica ?), now in its dotage. I never 
heard that it was young. See, is not nature here gone to 
decay, farms all run out, meeting-house grown gray and 
racked with age ? If you would know of its early youth, 
ask those old gray rocks in the pasture. It has a bell that 
sounds sometimes as far as Concord woods ; I have heard 
that, aye, — hear it now. No wonder that such a sound 
started the dreaming Indian, and frightened his game, when 
the first bells were swung on trees, and sounded through the 
forest beyond the plantations of the white man. But to-day 
I like best the echo amid these cliffs and woods. It is no 
feeble imitation, but rather its original, or as if some rural 
Orpheus played over the strain again to show how it should 

sound. 

Dong, sounds the brass in the east, 
As if to a funeral feast, 
But I like that sound the best 
Out of the fluttering west. 



44 A WEEK. 

The steeple ringeth a knell. 
But the fairies' silvery bell 
Is the voice of that gentle folk, 
Or else the horizon that spoke. 

Its metal is not of brass, 
But air, and water, and glass, 
And under a cloud it is swung. 
And by the wind it is rung. 

When the steeple tolleth the noon, 

It soundeth not so soon, 

Yet it rings a far earlier hour, 

And the sun has not reached its tower. 

On the other hand, the road runs up to Carlisle, city of 
the woods, which, if it is less civil, is the more natural. It 
does well hold the earth together. It gets laughed at be- 
cause it is a small town, I know, but nevertheless it is a 
place where great men may be born any day, for fair winds 
and foul blow right on over it without distinction. It has a 
meeting-house and horse-sheds, a tavern and a blacksmith's 
shop for center, and a good deal of wood to cut and cord 
yet. And 

Bedford, most noble Bedford, 
I shall not thee forget. 

History has remembered thee; especially that meek and hum- 
ble petition of thy old planters, like the v^'ailingof the Lord's 
own people, " To the gentlemen, the selectmen " of Concord 
praying to be erected into a separate parish. We can hardly 
credit that so plaintive a psalm resounded but little more 
than a century ago along these Babylonish waters. " In the 
extreme difificult seasons of heat and cold," said they, " we 
were ready to say of the Sabbath, behold what a weariness 
is it." — " Gentlemen, if our seeking to draw off proceed 
from any disaffection to our present reverend pastor, or the 
Christian society with whom we have taken such sweet 



SUNDAY. 45 

counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in com- 
pany, then hear us not this day ; but we greatly desire, if God 
please, to be eased of our burden on the Sabbath, the travel 
and fatigue thereof, that the word of God may be nigh to us, 
near to our houses and in our hearts, that we and our little 
ones may serve the Lord. We hope that God, who stirred 
up the spirit of Cyrus to set forward temple work, has stirred 
us up to ask, and will stir you up to grant, the prayer of 
our petition ; so shall your humble petitioners ever pray, as 
in duty bound." And so the temple work went forward here 
to a happy conclusion. Yonder, in Carlisle, the building of 
the temple was many wearysome years delayed, not that 
there vvas wanting of Shittim wood, or the gold of Ophir, 
but a site therefor convenient to all of the worshipers ; 
whether on " Buttrick's Plain," or rather on " Poplar Hill." 
It was a tedious question. 

In this Billerica solid men must have lived, select from 
year to year, a series of town clerks, at least, and there are 
old records that you may search. Some spring the white 
man came, built him a house, and made a clearing here, let- 
ting in the sun, dried up a farm, piled up the old gray stones 
in fences, cut down the pines around his dwelling, planted 
orchard seeds brought from the old country, and persuaded 
the civil apple tree to blossom next to the wild pine and the 
juniper, shedding its perfume in the wilderness. Their old 
stocks still remain. He culled the graceful elm from out 
the woods and from the river-side, and so refined and 
smoothed his village plot. And thus he plants a town. He 
rudely bridged the stream, and drove his team afield into 
the river meadows, cut the wild grass, and laid bare the 
homes of beaver, otter, musk rat, and with the whetting of 
his scythe scared off the deer and bear. He set up a mill, 
and fields of English grain sprang in the virgin soil. And 
with his grain he scattered the seeds of the dandelion and 
the wild trefoil over the meadows, mingling his English flow- 



46 A WEFK. 

ers with the wild native ones. The bristling burdock, the 
sweet-scented catnip, and the humble yarrow, planted them- 
selves along his woodland road, the)% too, seeking " free- 
dom to worship God " in their way. The white man's mul- 
lein soon reigned in Indian corn-fields, and sweet-scented 
English grasses clothed the new soil. Where, then, could 
the red man set his foot ? The honey bee hummed through 
the Massachusetts woods, and sipped the wild flowers round 
the Indian's wigwam, perchance unnoticed, when, with pro- 
phetic warning, it stung the red child's hand, forerunner of 
that industrious tribe that was to come and pluck the wild 
flower of his race up by the root. 

The white man comes, pale as the dawn, with a load of 
thought, with a slumbering intelligence as a fire raked up, 
knowing well what he knows, not guessing but calculating; 
strong in community, yielding obedience to authority; of 
experienced race; of wonderful, wonderful common sense; 
dull but capable, slow but persevering, severe but just, of 
little humor but genuine; a laboring man, despising game 
and sport; building a house that endures, a framed house. 
He buys the Indian's moccasins and baskets, then buys his 
hunting grounds, and at length forgets where he is buried, 
and plows up his bones. And here town records, old, 
tattered, time-worn, weather-stained chronicles, contain the 
Indian sachem's mark, perchance, an arrow or a beaver, 
and the few fatal words by which he deeded his hunting 
grounds away. He comes with a list of ancient Saxon, 
Norman, and Celtic names, and strews them up and down 
this river, — Framingham, Sudbury, Bedford, Carlisle, 
Billerica, Chelmsford, — and this is New Angle-land, and 
these are the new West Saxons, whom the red men call, not 
Angle-ish or English, but Yengeese, and so at last they are 
known for Yankees. 

When we were opposite to the middle of Billerica, the 
fields on either hand had a soft and cultivated English 



SUNDAY. 47 

aspect, the village spire being seen over the copses which 
skirt the river, and sometimes an orchard straggled down to 
the water side, though, generally, our course this forenoon 
was the wildest part of our voyage. It seemed that men 
led a quiet and very civil life there. The inhabitants were 
plainly cultivators of the earth, and lived under an organ- 
ized political government. The school-house stood with a 
meek aspect, entreating a long truce to war and savage life. 
Every one finds by his own experience, as well as in history, 
that the era in which men cultivate the apple and the 
amenities of the garden, is essentially different from that of 
the hunter and forest life, and neither can displace the 
other without loss. We have all had our day dreams as 
well as more prophetic nocturnal visions, but as for farming, 
I am convinced that my genius dates from an older era 
than the agricultural. I would at least strike my spade 
into the earth with such careless freedom but accuracy as 
the woodpecker his bill into a tree. There is in my nature, 
methinks, a singular yearning toward all wildness. I know 
of no redeeming qualities in myself but a sincere love for 
some things, and when I am reproved I fall back on to this 
ground. What have I to do with plows ? I cut another 
furrow than you see. Where the off ox treads, there is it 
/not, it is further off; where the nigh ox walks, it will not be, 
it is nigher still. If corn fails, my crop fails not, and what 
are drought and rain to me ? The rude Saxon pioneer will 
sometimes pine for that refinement and artificial beauty 
which are English, and love to hear the sound of such 
sweet and classical names as the Pentland and Malvern 
Hills, the Cliffs of Dover and the Trosachs, Richmond, 
Derwent, and Winandermere, which are to him now instead 
of the Acropolis and Parthenon, of Baise, and Athens with 
its sea walls, and Arcadia and Tempe. 

Greece, who am I that should remember thee, 
Thy Marathon and thy Thermopylse ? 



48 



Is my life vulgar, my fate mean, 

Which on these golden memories can lean ? 



We are apt enough to be pleased with such books as 
Evelyn's Sylva, Acetarium, and Kalendarium Hortense, but 
they imply a relaxed nerve in the reader. Gardening is 
civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the 
forest and the outlaw. There may be an excess of cultiva- 
tion as well as of anything else, until civilization becomes 
pathetic. A highly cultivated man — all whose bones can 
be bent ! whose heaven-born virtues are but good manners ! 
The young pines springing up in the corn-fields from year 
to year are to me a refreshing fact. We talk of civilizing 
the Indian, but that is not the name for his improvement. 
By the wary independence and aloofness of his dim forest 
life he preserves his intercourse with his native gods, and 
is admitted from time to time to a rare and peculiar society 
with nature. He has glances of starry recognition to which 
our saloons are strangers. The steady illumination of his 
genius, dim only because distant, is like the faint but satis- 
fying light of the stars compared with the dazzling but 
ineffectual and shortlived blaze of candles. The Society 
Islanders had their day-born gods, but they were not sup- 
posed to be " of equal antiquity with the atua fauaupo, or 
night-born gods." It is true, there are the innocent 
pleasures of country life, and it is sometimes pleasant to 
make the earth yield her increase, and gather the fruits in 
their season, but the heroic spirit will not fail to dream of 
remoter retirements and more rugged paths. It will have 
its garden plots and its parterres elsewhere than on the 
earth, and gather nuts and berries by the way for its subsist- 
ence, or orchard fruits with such heedlessness as berries. 
We would not always be soothing and taming nature, break- 
ing the horse and the ox, but sometimes ride the horse wild 
and chase the buffalo. The Indian's intercourse with Nature 
is at least such as admits of the greatest independence of 



SUNDAY. 49 

each. If he is somewhat of a stranger in her midst, the 
gardener is too much of a familiar. There is something 
vulgar and foul in the latter's closeness to his mistress, 
something noble and cleanly in the former's distance. In 
civilization, as in a southern latitude, man degenerates at 
length, and yields to the incursion of more northern tribes, 

Some nation yet shut in 
With hills of ice. 

There are other, savager, and more primeval aspects of 
nature than our poets have sung. It is only white man's 
poetry. Homer and Ossian even can never revive in Lon- 
don or Boston. And yet, behold, how these cities are 
refreshed by the mere tradition or the imperfectly trans- 
mitted fragrance and flavor of these wild fruits. If we 
could listen but for an instant to the chaunt of the Indian 
muse, we should understand why he will not exchange his 
savageness for civilization. Nations are not whimsical. 
Steel and blankets are strong temptations ; but the Indian 
does well to continue Indian. 

After sitting in my chamber many days, reading the poets, 
I have been out early on a foggy morning, and heard the 
cry of an owl in a neighboring wood as from a nature be- 
hind the common, unexplored by science or by literature. 
None of the feathered race has yet realized my youthful 
conceptions of the woodland depths. I had seen the red 
election-bird brought from their recesses on my comrades' 
string, and fancied that their plumage would assume 
stranger and more dazzling colors, like the tints of evening, 
in proportion as I advanced further into the darkness and 
solitude of the forest. Still less have I seen such strong 
and wild tints on any poet's string. 

These modern ingenious sciences and arts do not affect 
me as those more venerable arts of hunting and fishing, and 



50 A WEFlK. 

even as husbandry in its primitive and simple form ; as an- 
cient and honorable trades as the sun and moon and winds 
pursue, coeval with the faculties of man, and invented when 
these were invented. We do not know their John Guten- 
berg, or Richard Arkwright, though the poets would fain 
make them to have been gradually learned and taught. 
According to Gower, 

And ladahel, as saith the boke, 
Firste made nette, and fishes toke. 
Of huntyng eke he fond the chace, 
Whiche nowe is knowe in many place ; 
A tent of clothe, with corde and stake, 
He sette up first, and did it make. 

Also, Lydgate says : 

Jason first sayled, in story it is tolde, 
Toward Colchos, to wynne the flees of golde. 
Ceres the Goddess fond first the tilthe of londe ; 

****** 
Also Aristeus fonde first the usage 
Of mylke, and cruddis, and of honey swote ; 
Peryodes, for grete avauntage, 
From flyntes smote fuyre, daryng in the roote. 

We read that Aristeus "obtained of Jupiter and Neptune, 
that the pestilential heat of the dog-days, wherein was great 
mortality, should be mitigated with wind." This is one of 
those dateless benefits conferred on man, which have no rec- 
ord in our vulgar day, though we still find some similitude 
to them in our dreams, in which we have a more liberal and 
juster apprehension of things, unconstrained by habit, which 
is then in some measure put off and divested of memory, 
which we call history. 

According to fable, when the Island of ^gina was de- 
populated by sickness, at the instance of vEacus, Jupiter 
turned the ants into men, that is, as some think, he made 



SUNDAY. 51 

men of the inhabitants who lived meanly like ants. This is 
perhaps the fullest history of those early days extant. 

The fable, which is naturally and truly composed, so as to 
satisfy the imagination ere it addresses the understanding, 
beautiful though strange as a wild flower, is to the wise man 
an apothegm, and admits of his most generous interpreta- 
tion. When we read that Bacchus made the Tyrrhenian 
mariners mad, so that they leapt into the sea, mistaking it 
for a meadow full of flowers, and so became dolphins, we 
are not concerned about the historical truth of this, but 
rather a higher poetical truth. We seem to hear the music 
of a thought, and care not if the understanding be not grat- 
ified. For their beauty, consider the fables of Narcissus, of 
Endymion, of Memnon son of Morning, the representative of 
all promising youths who have died a premature death, and 
whose memory is melodiously prolonged to the latest morn- 
ing ; the beautiful stories of Phaeton, and of the sirens whose 
isle shone afar off white with the bones of unburied men ; 
and the pregnant ones of Pan, Prometheus, and the Sphynx ; 
and that long list of names which have already become part 
of the universal language of civilized men, and from proper 
are becoming common names or nouns, — the Sibyls, the 
Eumenides, the Parcae, the Graces, the Muses, Nemesis, etc. 

It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity 
the furthest sundered nations and generations consent to 
give completeness and roundness to an ancient fable, of 
which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. 
By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the 
vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add 
some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the 
lately discovered planet Neptune ; or the asteroid Astraea, 
that the Virgin who was driven from earth to heaven at the 
end of the golden age, may have her local habitation in the 
heavens more distinctly assigned her, — for the slightest 



52 A WEEK. 

recognition of poetic worth is significant. By such slow 
aggregation has mythology grown from the first. The very 
nursery tales of this generation were the nursery tales of 
primeval races. They migrate from east to west, and again 
from west to east ; now expanded into the " tale divine " of 
bards, now shrunk into a popular rhyme. This is an ap- 
proach to that universal language, which men have sought 
in vain. This fond reiteration of the oldest expressions of 
truth by the latest posterity, content with slightly and 
religiously retouching the old material, is the most impres- 
sive proof of a common humanity. 

All nations love the same jests and tales, Jews, Christians, 
and Mahometans, and the same translated suffice for all. 
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale 
sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning. 
Joseph Wolff, the missionary, distributed copies of Robinson 
Crusoe, translated into Arabic, among the Arabs, and they 
made a great sensation. " Robinson Crusoe's adventures 
and wisdom," says he, " were read by Mahometans in the 
market-places of Sanaa, Hodyeda, and Loheya, and ad- 
mired and believed ! " On reading the book, the Arabians 
exclaimed, " Oh, that Robinson Crusoe must have been a 
great prophet ! " 

To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history 
and biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the 
common sense, it contains only enduring and essential truth, 
the I and you, the here and there, the now and then, being 
omitted. Either time or rare wisdom writes it. Before 
printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand 
years. The poet is he who can write some pure mythology 
to-day without the aid of posterity. In how few words, for 
instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard 
and Heloise, making but a sentence for our classical diction- 
ary, — and then, perchance, have stuck up their names to 
shine in some corner of the firmament. We moderns, on the 



SUNDAY. 53 

Other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and 
history, " memoirs to serve for a history," which itself is but 
materials to serve for a mythology. How many volumes 
folio would the Life and Labors of Prometheus have filled, 
if perchance it had fallen, as perchance it did first, in days 
of cheap printing ! Who knows what shape the fable of 
Columbus will at length assume, to be confounded with that 
of Jason and the expedition of the Argonauts. And Franklin, 
— there may be a line for him in the future classical diction- 
ary, recording what that demigod did, and referring him to 

some new genealogy. "Son of and . He aided the 

Americans to gain their independence, instructed mankind 
in economy, and drew down lightning from the clouds." 

The hidden significance of these fables which is some- 
times thought to have been detected, the ethics running 
parallel to the poetry and history, are not so remarkable as 
the readiness with which they may be made to express a 
variety of truths. As if they were the skeletons of still 
older and more universal truths than any whose flesh and 
blood they are for the time made to wear. It is like striv- 
ing to make the sun, or the wind, or the sea, symbols to 
signify exclusively the particular thoughts of our day. But 
what signifies it ? In the mythus a superhuman intelligence 
uses the unconscious thoughts and dreams of men as its 
hieroglyphics to address men unborn. In the history of 
the human mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede 
the noon-day thoughts of men, as Aurora the sun's rays. 
The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of 
the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmos- 
phere. 

As we said before, the Concord is a dead stream, but its 
scenery is the more suggestive to the contemplative voy- 
agei, and this day its water was fuller of reflections than our 
pages even. Just betore it reaches the falls in Billerica it 



54 A week:. 

is contracted, and becomes swifter and shallower, with a 
yellow pebbly bottom, hardly passable for a canal-boat, 
leaving the broader and more stagnant portion above like a 
lake among the hills. All through the Concord, Bedford, 
and Billerica meadows, we had heard no murmur from its 
stream, except where some tributary runnel tumbled in. 

Some tumultuous little rill, 

Purling round its storied pebble, 
Tinkling to the self-same tune, 
From September until June, 

Which no drought doth e'er enfeeble. 

Silent fiows the parent stream. 

And if rocks do lie below. 
Smothers with her waves the din, 
As it were a youthful sin, 

Just as still, and just as slow. 

But now at length we heard this staid and primitive river 
rushing to her fall, like any rill. We here left its channel, 
just above the Billerica Falls, and entered the canal, which 
runs, or rather is conducted, six miles through the woods 
to the Merrimac at Middlesex, and as we did not care to 
loiter in this part of our voyage, while one ran along the 
tow-path drawing the boat by a cord, the other kept it off 
the shore with a pole, so that we accomplished the whole 
distance in little more than an hour. This canal, which is 
the oldest in the country, and has even an antique look be- 
side the more modern railroads, is fed by the Concord, so 
that we were still floating on its familiar waters. It is so 
much water which the river Ic/s for the advantage of com- 
merce. There appeared some want of harmony in its 
scenery, since it was not of equal date with the woods and 
meadows through which it is led, and we missed the con- 
ciliatory influence of time on land and water; but in the 
lapse of ages, Nature will recover and indemnify herself, 



sundav. 55 

and gradually plant fit shrubs and flowers along its borders. 
Already the kingfisher sat upon a pine over the water, and 
the bream and pickerel swam below. Thus all works pass 
directly out of the hands of the architect into the hands of 
Nature, to be perfected. 

It was a retired and pleasant route, without houses or 
travelers, except some young men who were lounging upon a 
bridge in Chelmsford, who leaned impudently over the rails 
to pry into our concerns, but we caught the eye of the most 
forward, and looked at him till he was visibly discomfited. 
Not that there was any peculiar efficacy in our look, but 
rather a sense of shame left in him which disarmed him. 

It is a very true and expressive phrase, " He looked dag- 
gers at me," for the first pattern and prototype of all 
daggers must have been a glance of the eye. First, there 
was the glance of Jove's eye, then his fiery bolt, then, the 
material gradually hardening, tridents, spears, javelins, and 
finally, for the convenience of private men, daggers, krisses, 
and so forth, were invented. It is wonderful how we get 
about the streets without being wounded by these delicate 
and glancing weapons, a man can so nimbly whip out his 
rapier, or without being noticed carry it unsheathed. Yet 
after all, it is rare that one gets seriously looked at. 

As we passed under the last bridge over the canal, just 
before reaching the Merrimac, the people coming out of 
church paused to look at us from above, and apparently, so 
strong is custom, indulged in some heathenish comparisons ; 
but we are the truest observers of this sunny day. Accord- 
ing to Hesiod, 

The seventh is a holy day, 
For then Latona brought forth golden-rayed Apollo, 

and by our reckoning this was the seventh day of the week, 
and not the first. I find among the papers of an old justice 
of the peace and deacon of the town of Concord, this 
singular memorandum, which is worth preserving as a relic 



56 A WEEK. 

of 3in ancient custom. After reforming the spelling and 
grammar, it runs as follows : " Men that traveled with 
teams on the Sabbath, December 18, 1803, were Jeremiah 
Richardson and Jonas Parker, both of Shirley. They had 
teams with rigging such as is used to carry barrels, and they 
were traveling westward. Richardson was questioned by 
the Hon. Ephraim Wood, Esq., and he said that Jonas 
Parker was his fellow-traveler, and he further said that a 
Mr. Longley was his employer, who promised to bear him 
out." We were the men that were gliding northward, this 
September i, 1839, with still team, and rigging not the 
most convenient to carry barrels, unquestioned by any 
squire or church deacon, and ready to bear ourselves out, 
if need were. In the latter part of the seventeenth century, 
according to the historian of Dunstable, " Towns were 
directed to erect * a cage ' near the meeting-house, and in 
this all offenders against the sanctity of the Sabbath were 
confined." Society has relaxed a little from its strictness, 
one would say, but I presume that there is not less religioti 
than formerly. If the ligature is found to be loosened in 
one part, it is only drawn the tighter in another. 

You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, 
but must content yourself with the reflection that the pro- 
gress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grand- 
children may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hun- 
dred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred 
and fifty more, to prove that they are not to be referred to 
the Noachian deluge. I am not sure but I should betake 
myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, 
rather than to my country's God. Jehovah, though with us 
he has acquired new attributes, is more absolute and unap- 
proachable, but hardly more divine, than Jove. He is not 
so much of a gentleman among gods, not so gracious and 
catholic, he does not exert so intimate and genial an in- 
fluence on nature, as many a god of the Greeks. I should 



SUNDAY. 57 

fear the infinite power and inflexible justice of tlie almighty 
mortal, hardly as yet apotheosized, so wholly masculine, 
with no sister Juno, no Apollo, no Venus, nor Minerva, to 
intercede for me, ^vfxcp qjvXeovaa te, nrfdopLEvrj re. 
The Grecian are youthful and erring and fallen gods, with 
the vices of men, but in many important respects essentially 
of the divine race. In my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in his 
pristine glory, with his ruddy face, his flowing beard, and 
his shaggy body, his pipe and his crook, his nymph Echo, 
and his chosen daughter lambe ; for the great god Pan is 
not dead, as was rumored. Perhaps of all the gods of 
New England and of ancient Greece, I am most constant at 
his shrine. 

It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshiped 
in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears 
a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and 
respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one 
another, not yet God. If I thought that I could speak 
with discrimination and impartiality of the nations of 
Christendom, I should praise them, but it tasks me too 
much. They seem to be the most civil and humane, but 
I may be mistaken. Every people have gods to suit their 
circumstances ; the Society Islanders had a god called 
Toahitu, " in shape like a dog ; he saved such as were in 
danger of falling from rocks and trees." I think that we 
can do without him, as we have not much climbing to do. 
Among them a man could make himself a god out of a 
piece of wood in a few minutes, which would frighten him 
out of his wits. 

I fancy that some indefatigable spinster of the old school, 
who had the supreme felicity to be born in "days that tried 
men's souls," hearing this, may say with Nestor, another of 
the old school, " But you are younger than I. For time 
was when I conversed with greater men than you. For not 
at any time have I seen such men nor shall see them, as 



5^ A WEEK. 

Pei'itlious, and Dryas, and noLfxeva Xaoov,'* that is prob- 
ably Washington, sole "Shepherd of the People." And 
when Apollo has now si.K times rolled westward, or seemed 
to roll, and now for the sixth time shows his face in the east, 
eyes well-nigh glazed, long glassed, which have fluctuated 
only between lamb's wool and worsted, explore ceaselessly 
some good sermon book. For six days shall thou labor 
and do all thy knitting, but on the seventh, forsooth, thy 
reading. Happy we, who can bask in this warm September 
sun, which illumines all creatures, as well when they rest as 
when they toil, not without a feeling of gratitude ; whose 
life is as blameless, how blame-worthy soever it may be, on 
the Lord's Mona-day as on his Suna-day. 

There are various, nay, incredible faiths; why should we 
be alarmed at any of them ? What man believes, God 
believes. Long as I have lived, and many blasphemers as I 
have heard and seen, I have never yet heard or witnessed 
any direct and conscious blasphemy or irreverence; but of 
indirect and habitual enough. ^Vhere is the man who is 
guilty of direct and personal insolence to Him that made 
him? Yet there are certain current expressions of blas- 
phemous modes of viewing things — as, frequently, when we 
say, " He is doing a good business " — more profane than 
cursing and swearing. There is sin and death in such 
words. Let not the children hear them. My neighbor 
says that his hill farm is " poor stuff," " only fit to hold the 
world together," — and much more to that effect. He 
deserves that God should give him a better for so free a 
treating of his gifts, more than if he patiently put up there- 
with. But perhaps my farmer forgets that his lean soil has 
sharpened his wits. This is a crop it was good for. 

One memorable addition to the old mythology is due to 
this era, — the Christian fable. With what pains, and tears, 
and blood, these centuries have woven this and added it to 
the mythology of mankind. The new Prometheus. With 



SUNDAY. 59 

what miraculous consent, and patience, and persistency, has 
this mytlius been stamped upon the memory of the race ? 
It would seem as if it were in the progress of our myth- 
ology to dethrone Jehovah, and crown Christ in his stead. 

If it is not a tragical life we live, then I know not what 
to call it. Such a story as that of Jesus Christ, — the his- 
tory of Jerusalem, say, being a part of the Universal 
History. The naked, the embalmed, unburied death of 
Jerusalem amid its desolate hills, — think of it ? In Tasso's 
poem I trust some things are sweetly buried. Consider the 
snappish tenacity with which they preach Christianity still. 
What are time and space to Christianity, eighteen hundred 
years, and a new world ? — that the humble life of a Jewish 
peasant should have force to make a New York bishop so 
bigoted. Forty-four lamps, the gift of kings, now burning 
in a place called the Holy Sepulcher ; — a church bell ring- 
ing ; — some unaffected tears shed by a pilgrim on Mount 
Calvary within the week. 

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, when I forget thee, may my right 
hand forget her cunning." 

" By the waters of Babylon there we sat down, and we 
wept when we remembered Zion." 

I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha, or 
Christ, or Svvedenborg, who are without the pale of their 
churches. It is necessary not to be Christian, to appreciate 
the beauty and significance of the life of Christ. I know 
that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear 
their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that 
I am willing they should love their Christ more than my 
Buddha, for the love is the main thing, and I like him, too. 
Why need Christians be still intolerant and superstitious ? 
The simple-minded sailors were unwilling to cast overboard 
Jonah at his own request. 

Where is this love become in later age ? 
Alas ! 'tis gone in endless pilgrimage 



6o A WEEK. 

From hence, and never to return, I doubt, 
Till revolution wheel those times about. 

One man says : 

The world's a popular disease, that reigns 
Within the froward heart and frantic brains 
Of poor distempered mortals. 

Another that 

All the world's a stage. 
And all the men and women merely players. 

The world is a strange place for a play-house to stand 
within it. Old Drayton thought that a man that lived 
here, and would be a poet, for instance, should have in 
him certain " brave translunary things," and a " fine mad- 
ness " should possess his brain. Certainly it were as well, 
that he might be up to the occasion. That is a superfluous 
wonder, which Dr. Johnson expresses at the assertion of 
Sir Thomas Browne, that " his life has been a miracle of 
thirty years, which to relate, were not history, but a piece 
of poetry, and would sound like a fable." The wonder is 
rather that all men do not assert as much. 

Think what a mean and wretched place this world is ; 
that half the time we have to light a lamp that we may see 
to live in it. This is half our life. Who would undertake 
the enterprise if it were all ? And, pray, what more has 
day to offer ? A lamp that burns more clear, a purer oil, 
say winter-strained, that so we may pursue our idleness with 
less obstruction. Bribed with a little sunlight and a few 
prismatic tints, we bless our Maker and stave off his wrath 
with hymns. 

I make ye an offer. 

Ye gods, hear the scoffer, 

The scheme will not hurt you. 

If ye will find goodness, I will find virtue 

Though I am your creature, 

And child of your nature, 



SUNDAY. 6l 

I have pride still unbended, 
And blood undescended, 
Some free independence. 
And my own descendants. 
I cannot toil blindly. 
Though ye behave kindly. 
And I swear by the rood, 
I'll be slave to no God. 
If ye will deal plainly, 
I will strive mainly, 
If ye will discover, 
Great plans to your lover, 
And give him a sphere 
Somewhat larger than here. 

" Verily, my angels ! I was abashed on account of my 
servant, who had no Providence but me ; therefore did I 
pardon him." — The Gulistan of Sadi. 

Most people with whom I talk, men and women even of 
some originality and genius, have their scheme of the uni- 
verse all cut and dried, — very dry, I assure you, to hear, dry 
enough to burn, dry-rotted and powder-post, methinks, — 
which they set up between you and them in the shortest 
intercourse ; an ancient and tottering frame with all its 
boards blown off. They do not walk without their bed. 
Some to me seemingly very unimportant and unsubstantial 
things and relations, are for them everlastingly settled, — as 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the like. These are like 
the everlasting hills to them. But in all my wanderings I 
never came across the least vestige of authority for these 
things. They have not left so distinct a trace as the deli- 
cate flower of a remote geological period on the coal in my 
grate. The wisest man preaches no doctrines ; he has no 
scheme ; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the 
heavens. It is clear sky. If I ever see more clearly at one 
time than at another, the medium through which I see is 
clearer. To see from earth to heaven, and see there stand- 



62 A WEEK. 

ing, still a fixture, that old Jewish scheme ! What right 
have you to hold up this obstacle to my understanding you, 
to your understanding me ! You did not invent it ; it was 
imposed on you. Examine your authority. Even Christ, 
we fear, had his scheme, his conformity to tradition, which 
slightly vitiates his teaching. He had not swallowed all 
formulas. He preached some mere doctrines. As for me, 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtilest 
imaginable essences, which would not stain the morning 
sky. Your scheme must be the frame-work of the universe ; 
all other schemes will soon be ruins. The perfect God in 
his revelations of himself has never got to the length of one 
such proposition as you, his prophets, state. Have you 
learned the alphabet of heaven, and can count three? Do 
you know the number of God's family ? Can you put mys- 
teries into words? Do you presume to fable of the in- 
effable ? Pray, what geographer are you that speak of 
heaven's topography ? Whose friend are you that speak of 
God's personality ? Do you. Miles Howard, think that he 
has made you his confidant ? Tell me of the height of the 
mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I 
may believe you ; but of the secret history of the Almighty, 
and I shall pronounce thee mad. Yet we have a sort of 
family history of our God, — so have the Tahitians of 
theirs, — rand some old poet's grand imagination is im- 
posed on us as adamantine everlasting truth and God's own 
word ! 

The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I con- 
fess to having been slightly prejudiced against it in my very 
early days by the church and the Sabbath school, so that 
it seemed, before I read it, to be the yellowest book in the 
catalogue. Yet I early escaped from their meshes. It was 
hard to get the commentaries out of one's head, and taste 
its true flavor, I think that Pilgrim's Progress is the best 



SUNDAY. G^ 

sermon which has been preached from this text ; ahnost all 
other sermons that I have heard or heard of, have been but 
poor imitations of this. It would be a poor story to be 
prejudiced against the Hfe of Christ, because the book has 
been edited by Christians. In fact, I love this book rarely, 
though it is a sort of castle in the air to me, which I am per- 
mitted to dream. Having come to it so recently and freshly, 
it has the greater charm, so that I cannot find any to talk 
with about it. I never read a novel, they have so little real 
life and thought in them. The reading which I love best is 
the scriptures of the several nations, though it happens that 
I am better acquainted with those of the Hindoos, the Chi- 
nese, and the Persians, than of the Hebrews, which I have 
come to last. Give me one of these Bibles, and you have 
silenced me for a while. When I recover the use of my 
tongue, I am wont to worry my neighbors with the new sen- 
tences, but commonly they cannot see that there is any wit 
in them. Such has been my experience with the New Tes- 
tament. I have not yet got to the crucifixion, I have read 
it over so many times. I should love dearly to read it aloud 
to my friends, some of whom are seriously inclined ; it is so 
good, and I am sure that they never have heard it, it fits their 
case exactly, and we should enjoy it so much together, — but 
I instinctively despair of getting their ears. They soon show 
by signs not to be mistaken, that it is inexpressibly weari- 
some to them. I do not mean to imply that I am any better 
than my neighbors ; for, alas ! I know that I am only as 
good, though I love better books than they. It is remark- 
able, that notwithstanding the universal favor with which 
the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the big- 
otry with which it is defended, there is no hospitality shown 
to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which 
it deals. I know of no book that has so few readers. There 
is none so truly strange, and heretical, and unpopular. To 
Christians, no less than Greeks and Jews, it is foolishness 



64 A WEEK. 

and a stumbling block. There are, indeed, severe things in 
it no man should read aloud but once. " Seek first the 
kingdom of heaven." " Lay not up for yourselves treasures 
on earth." " If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou 
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven." " For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the 
whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man 
give in exchange for his soul ? " Think of this, Yankees ! 
— "Verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of 
mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain. Remove hence 
to yonder place ; and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be 
impossible unto you." Think of repeating these things to 
a New England audience ! thirdly, fourthly, fifteenthly, till 
there are three barrels of sermons I Who, without cant, can 
read them aloud ? Who, without cant, can hear them, and 
not go out of the meeting-house ? They never were read, 
they never were heard. Let but one of these sentences be 
rightly read from any pulpit in the land, and there would 
not be left one stone of that meeting-house upon another. 

Yet the New Testament treats of man and man's so-called 
spiritual affairs too exclusively, and is too constantly moral 
and personal, to alone content me, who am not interested 
solely in man's religious or moral nature, or in man even. 
I have not the most definite design on the future. Abso- 
lutely speaking. Do unto others as you would that they 
should do unto you, is by no means a golden rule, but the 
best of current silver. An honest man would have but little 
occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in 
such a case. The book has never been written which is to 
be accepted without any allowance. Christ was a sublime 
actor on the stage of the world. He knew what he was 
thinking of when he said, " Heaven and earth shall pass 
away, but my words shall not pass away." I draw near to 
him at such a time. Yet he taught mankind but imperfectly 



SUNDAY. 65 

how to live ; his thoughts were all directed toward another 
world. Tiiere is another kind of a success than his. Even 
here we have a sort of living to get, and must buffet it 
somewhat longer. There are various tough problems yet 
to solve, and we must make shift to live, betwixt spirit and 
matter, such a human life as we can. 

A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-chop- 
ping at fifty cents a cord, and a camp in the woods, will not 
be a good subject for Christianity.- The New Testament 
may be a choice book to him on some, but not on all or 
most of his days. He will rather go a fishing in his 
leisure hours. The apostles, though they were fishers, 
too, were of the solemn race of sea fishers, and never trolled 
for pickerel on inland streams. 

Men have a singular desire to be good, without being 
good for anything, because, perchance, they think vaguely 
that so it will be good for them in the end. The sort of 
morality which the priest inculcates is a very subtle policy, 
far finer than the politician's, and the world is very success- 
fully ruled by them as the policemen. It is not worth the 
while to let our imperfections disturb us always. The con- 
science really does not, and ought not to monopolize the 
whole of our lives, any more than the heart or the head. It 
is as liable to disease as any other part. I have seen some 
whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to former indul- 
gence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt children, 
and at length gave them no peace. They did not know 
when to swallow their cud, and their lives, of course, yielded 
no milk. 

Conscience is instinct bred in the house, 

Feeling and Thinking propagate the sin 

By an unnatural breeding in and in. 

I say, Turn it out doors, 

Into the moors. 

i love a life whose plot is simple, 

And does not thicken with every pimple ; 1 



66 A WEEK. 

A soul so sound no sickly conscience binds it, 

That makes the universe no worse than 't finds it, . 

I love an earnest soul, 

Whose mighty joy and sorrow 

Are not drowned in a bowl, 

And brought to life to-morrow ; 

That lives one tragedy, 

And not seventy ; 

A conscience worth keeping. 

Laughing not weeping ; 

A conscience wise and steady, 

And forever ready ; 

Not changing with events, 

Dealing in compliments ; 

A conscience exercised about 

Large things, where one may doubt. .'.": 

I love a soul not all of wood. 

Predestinated to be good. 

But true to the backbone 

Unto itself alone. 

And false to none ; 

Born to its own affairs, 

Its own joys and own cares ; 

By whom the work which God begun 

Is finished, and not undone ; 

Taken up where he left off, 

Whether to worship or to scoff ; 

If not good, why then evil. 

If not good god, good devil. 

Goodness ! — you hypocrite, come out of that, 

Live your life, do your work, then take your nat. 

I have no patience towards 

Such conscientious cowards. 

Give me simple laboring folk, 

Who love their work. 

Whose virtue is a song 

To cheer God along. 

I was once reproved by a minister who was driving a 
poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds among the 
hills of New Hampshire, because I was bending my steps to 



SUNDAY. 67 

a mountain-top on the Sabbath, instead of a church, when I 
would have gone further than he to hear a true word spoken 
on that or any day. He declared that I was " breaking the 
Lord's fourth commandment," and proceeded to enumerate, 
in a sepulchral tone, the disasters which had befallen him 
whenever he had done any ordinary work on the Sabbath. 
He really thought that a god was at work to tip up those 
men who followed any secular work on this day, and did 
not see that it was the evil conscience of the workers 
that did it. The country is full of this superstition, so that 
when one enters a village, the church, not only really but 
from association, is the ugliest looking building in it, 
because it is the one in which human nature stoops the 
lowest and is most disgraced. Certainly, such temples as 
these shall ere long cease to deform the landscape. 

If I should ask the minister of Middlesex to let me speak 
in his pulpit on a Sunday, he would object, because 1 do 
not pray as he does, or because I am not ordained. What 
under the sun are these things ? 

Really, there is no infidelity, nowadays, so great as that 
which prays, and keeps the Sabbath, and rebuilds the 
churches. The sealer of the South Pacific preaches a truer 
doctrine. The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls, 
and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies. 
Those who are taken into it live like pensioners in their 
Retreat or Sailor's Snug Harbor, where you may see a row 
of religious cripples sitting outside in sunny weather. Let 
not the apprehension that he may one day have to occupy 
a ward therein, discourage the cheerful labors of the 
able-souled man. While he remembers the sick in their 
extremities, let him not look thither as to his goal. One is 
sick at heart of this pagoda worship. It is like the beating 
of gongs in a Hindoo subterranean temple. In dark places 
and dungeons the preacher's words might perhaps strike 
root and grow, but not in broad daylight in any part of the 



68 A WEEK. 

world that I know. The sound of the Sabbath bell far 
away, now breaking on these shores, does not awaken 
pleasing associations, but melancholy and somber ones 
rather. One involuntarily rests on his oar, to humor his 
unusually meditative mood. It is as the sound of many 
catechisms and religious books twanging a canting peal 
round the earth, seeming to issue from some Egyptian 
temple and echo along the shore of the Nile, right opposite 
to Pharaoh's palace and Moses in the bulrushes, startling a 
multitude of storks and alligators basking in the sun. 

Everywhere " good men " sound a retreat, and the word 
has gone forth to fall back on innocence. Fall forward 
rather on to whatever there is there. Christianity only 
hopes. It has hung its harp on the willows, and cannot 
sing a song in a strange land. It has dreamed a sad dream, 
and does not yet welcome the morning with joy. The 
mother tells her falsehoods to her child ; but, thank Heaven, 
the child does not grow up in its parent's shadow. Our 
mother's faith has not grown with her experience. Her 
experience has been too much for her. The lesson of life 
was too hard for her to learn. 

It is remarkable, that almost all speakers and writers feel 
it to be incumbent on them, sooner or later, to prove or to 
acknowledge the personality of God. Some Earl of Bridge- 
water, thinking it better late than never, has provided for it 
in his will. It is a sad mistake. In reading a work on 
agriculture, we have to skip the author's moral reflections, 
and the words " Providence " and " He " scattered along 
the page, to come at the profitable level of what he has to 
say. What he calls his religion is for the most part offen- 
sive to the nostrils. He should know better than expose 
himself, and keep his foul sores coveted till they are quite 
healed. There is more religion in men's science than there 
is science in their religion. Let us make haste to the re- 
port of the committee on swine. 



SUNDAY. 69 

A man's real faith is never contained in his creed, nor is 
his creed an article of his faith. The last is never adopted. 
This it is that permits him to smile ever, and to live even 
as bravely as he does. And yet he clings anxiously to his 
creed as to a straw, thinking that that does him good ser- 
vice because his sheet anchor does not drag. 

In most men's religion, the ligature, which should be its 
umbilical cord connecting them with divinity, is. rather like 
that thread which the accomplices of Cylon held in their 
hands when they went abroad from the temple of Minerva, 
the other end being attached to the statue of the goddess. 
But frequently, as in their case, the thread breaks, being 
stretched, and they are left without an asylum. 

A good and pious man reclined his head on the bosom of contempla- 
tion, and was absorbed in the ocean of a reverie. At the instant when 
he awaked from his vision, one of his friends, by way of pleasantry, 
said : What rare gift have you brought us from that garden, where you 
have been recreating ? He replied : I fancied to myself and said, when 
I can reach the rose-bower, I will fill my lap with the flowers, and bring 
them as a present to my friends ; but when I got there, the fragrance of 
the roses so intoxicated me, that the skirt dropped from my hands. " O 
bird of dawn ! learn the warmth of affection from the moth ; for that 
scorched creature gave up the ghost, and uttered not a groan. These vain 
pretenders are ignorant of him they seek after ; for of him that knew him 
we never heard again. O thou ! who towerest above the flights of con- 
jecture, opinion and comprehension, whatever has been reported of thee 
we have heard and read ; the congregation is dismissed, and life drawn 
to a close; and we still rest at our first encomium of thee ! " — Sadi. 

By noon we were let down into the Merrimac through 
the locks at iVEiddlescx, just above Pawtucket Falls, by a 
serene and liberal-minded man, who came quietly from 
his book, though his duties, we supposed, did not require 
him to open the locks on Sundays. With him we had a 
just and equal encounter of the eyes, as between two honest 
men. 

The movements of the eyes express the perpetual and 



•70 A WEEK. 

unconscious courtesy of the parties. It is said, that a rogue 
does not look you in the face, neither does an honest man 
look at you as if he had his reputation to establish. I have 
seen some who did not know when to turn aside their eyes 
in meeting yours. A truly confident and magnanimous 
spirit is wiser than to contend for the mastery in such 
encounters. Serpents alone conquer by the steadiness of 
their gaze. My friend looks me in the face and sees me, 
that is all. 

The best relations were at once established between us 
and this man, and though few words were spoken, he could 
not conceal a visible interest in us and our excursion. He 
was a lover of the higher mathematics, as we found, and in 
the midst of some vast sunny problem, when we overtook 
him and whispered our conjectures. By this man we were 
presented wit'i the freedom of the Merrimac. We now felt 
as if we were fairly launched on the ocean-stream of our 
voyage, and were pleased to find that our boat would float 
on Merrimac water. We began again busily to put in 
practice those old arts of rowing, steering, and paddling. 
It seemed a strange phenomenon to us that the two rivers 
should mingle their waters so readily, since we had never 
associated them in our thoughts. 

As we glided over the broad bosom of the Merrimac, 
between Chelmsford and Dracut, at noon, here a quarter of 
a mile wide, the rattling of our oars was echoed over the 
water to those villages, and their slight sounds to us. Their 
harbors lay as smooth and fairy-like as the Lido, or Syra- 
cuse, or Rhodes, in our imagination, while, like some 
strange roving craft, we flitted past what seemed the dwell- 
ings of noble, home-staying men, seemingly as conspicuous 
as if on an eminence, or floating upon a tide which came 
up to those villagers' breasts. At a third of a mile over 
the water we heard distinctly some children repeating their 
catechism in a cottage near the shore, while in the broad 



SUNDAY. 7r 

shallows between, a li.erd of cows stood lashing their sides, 
and waging war with the flies. 

Two hundred years ago, other catechising than this was 
going on here ; for here came the Sachem Wannalancet, 
and his people, and sometimes Tahatawan, our Concord 
Sachem, who afterward had a church at home, to catch fish 
at the falls, and here also came John Eliot, with the Bible 
and Catechism, and Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, and 
other tracts, done into the Massachusetts tongue, and 
taught them Christianity meanwhile. " This place," says 
Gookin, referring to Wamesit, 

" being an ancient and capital seat of Indians, they come to fish ; and this 
good man takes this opportunity to spread the net of the gospel to fish for 
their souls." — " May 5, 1674," he continues, "according to our usual cus- 
tom, Mr. Eliot and myself took our journey to Wamesit, or Pawtuckett ; 
and arriving there that evening, Mr. Eliot preached to as many of them as 
could be got together, out of Matt, xxii, 1-14, the parable of the marriage 
of the king's son. We met at the wigwam of one called Wannalancet, 
about two miles from the town, near Pawtuckett falls, and bordering upon 
Merrimac river. This person, Wannalancet, is the eldest son of old Pasa- 
conaway, the chiefest sachem of Pawtuckett. He is a sober and grave per- 
son, and of years between fifty and sixty. He hath been always loving 
and friendly to the English." As yet, however, they had not prevailed on 
him to embrace the Christian religion. " But at this time," says Gookin, 
"May 6, 1674," — " after some deliberation and serious pause, he stood up 
and made a speech to this effect : — ' I must acknowledge I have, all my 
days, used to pass in an old canoe (alluding to his frequent custom to 
pass in a canoe upon the river), and now you exhort me to change and 
leave my old canoe, and embark in a new canoe, to which I have hitherto 
been unwilling ; but now I yield up myself to your advice, and enter into 
a new canoe, and do engage to pray to God hereafter.' " One " Mr. 
Richard Daniel, a gentleman that lived in Billerica," who with other " per- 
sons of quality " was present, " desired brother Eliot to tell the sachem 
from him, that it may be, while he went in his old canoe, he passed in a 
quiet stream ; but the end thereof was death and destruction to soul and 
body. But now he went into a new canoe, perhaps he would meet with 
storms and trials, but yet he should be encouraged to persevere, for the 
end of his voyage would be everlasting rest." — " Since that time, I hear 
this sachem doth persevere, and is a constant and diligent hearer of God's 



72 A WEEK. 

word, and sanctifieth the Sabbath, though he doth travel to Wamesit 
meeting every Sabbath, which is above two miles ; and though sundry of 
his people have deserted him, since he subjected to the gospel, yet he 
continues and persists." — Gookins Hist. Coll. of the Indians in A^eiv 
England, 1674. 

Already, as appears from the records, "At a General Court held at 
Boston in New England, the 7th of the first month. 1643-4.'' — " Wassam- 
equin, Nashoonon, Kutchamaquin, Massaconomet, and Squaw Sachem, 
did voluntarily submit themselves " to the English ; and among other 
things did " promise to be willing from time to time to be instructed 
in the knowledge of God." Being asked " Not to do any un- 
necessary work on the Sabbath day, especially within the gates of Chris- 
tian towns," they answered, "It is easy to them ; they have not 
much to do on any day. and they can well take their rest on that day." — 
" So," says Winthrop, in his Journal, " we causing them to understand 
the articles, and all the ten commandments of God, and they freely as- 
senting to all, they were solemnly received, and then presented the Court 
with twenty-six fathom more of wampom ; and the Court gave each of 
them a coat of two yards of cloth and their dinner : and to them and their 
men, every one of them, a cup of sack at their departure ; so they took 
leave and went away." 

What journeyings on foot and on horseback through the 
wilderness, to preach the gospel to these minks and musk- 
rats ! who first, no doubt, listened with their red ears out of 
a natural hospitality and courtesy, and afterward, from curi- 
osity or even interest, till at length there were "praying 
Indians," and, as the General Court wrote to Cromwell, the 
"work is brought to this perfection that some of the Indi- 
ans themselves can pray and prophesy in a comfortable 
manner." 

It was in fact an old battle and hunting ground through 
which we had been floating, the ancient dwelling-place of a 
race of hunters and warriors. The weirs of stone, their 
arrowheads and hatchets, their pestles, and the mortars in 
which they pounded Indian corn before the white man had 
tasted it, lay concealed in the mud of the river bottom. 
Tradition still points out the spot where they took fish in 



SUNDAY. 73 

the greatest numbers, by such arts as they possessed. It is 
a rapid story the historian will have to put together. IMian- 
tonimo, Winthrop, Webster. Soon he comes from Mount 
Hope to Bunker Hill, from bearskins, parched corn, bows 
and arrows, to tiled roofs, wheat-fields, guns and swords. 
Pawtucket and Wamesit, where the Indians resorted in the 
fishing season, are now Lowell, the city of spindles and 
Manchester of America, which sends its cotten cloth round 
the globe. Even we youthful voyagers had spent a part of 
our lives in the village of Chehnsford, when the present 
city, whose bells we heard, was its obscure north district 
only, and the giant weaver was not yet fairly born. So old 
are we ; so young is it. 

We were thus entering the State of New Hampshire on the 
bosom of the flood formed by the tribute of its innumerable 
valleys. The river was the only key which could unlock its 
maze, presenting its hills and valleys, its lakes and streams, 
in their natural order and position. The Merrimac, or 
Sturgeon River, is formed by the confluence of the Pemige- 
wasset, which ris&s near the Notch of the White Mountains, 
and the Winnepisiogee, which drains the lake of the same 
name, signifying " The Smile of the Great Spirit." From 
their junction it runs south seventy-eight miles to Massa- 
chusetts, and thence east thirty-five miles to the sea. I 
have traced its stream from where it bubbles out of the rocks 
of the White Mountains above the clouds, to where it is 
lost amid the salt billows of the ocean, on Plum Island 
beach. At first it comes on murmuring to itself by the base 
of stately and retired mountains, through moist primitive 
woods whose juices it receives, where the bear still drinks it, 
and the cabins of settlers are far between, and there are 
few to cross its stream ; enjoying in solitude its cascades 
still unknown to fame ; by long ranges of mountains of 
Sandwich and of Squam, slumbering like tumuli of Titans, 



74 A WEEK. 

with the peaks of Moosehillock, the Haystack, and Kear- 
sarge reflected in its waters ; where the maple and the 
raspberry, those lovers of the hills, flourish amid temperate 
dews ; — flowing long and full of meaning, but untranslatable 
as its name, Pemigewasset, by many a pastured Pelion and 
Ossa, where unamed muses haunt, tended by Oreads, 
Dryads, Naiads, and receiving the tribute of many an un- 
tasted Hippocrene. There are earth, air, fire, and water, — 
very well, this is water, and down it comes. 

Such water do the gods distill, 
And pour down every hill 

For their New England men ; 
A draught of this wild nectar bring, 
And I'll not taste the spring 

Of Helicon again. 

Falling all the way, and yet not discouraged by the lowest 
fall. By the law of its birth never to become stagnant, for 
it has come out of the clouds, and down the sides of preci- 
pices worn in the flood, through beaver dams broke loose, 
not splitting but splicing and mending itself, until it found 
a breathing place in this low land. There is no danger now 
that the sun will steal it back to heaven again before it 
reach the sea, for it has a warrant even to recover its own 
dews into its bosom again with interest at every eve. 

It was already the water of Squam and Newfound 
Lake and Winnepisiogee, and White Mountain snow dis- 
solved, on which we were floating, and Smith's and Baker's 
and Mad rivers, and Nashua and Souhegan and Piscataquoag, 
and Suncook^nd Soucook and Contoocook, mingled in in- 
calculable proportions, still fluid, yellowish, restless all, with 
an ancient,Jneradicable inclination to the sea. 

So it flows on down by Lowell and Haverhill, at which 
last place it first suffers a sea change, and a few masts be- 
tray the vicinity of the ocean. Between the towns of Ames- 
bury and Newbury it is a broad commercial river, from a 



SUNDAY. 75 

third to half a mile in width, no longer skirted with yellow 
and crumbling banks, but backed by high green hills and 
pastures, with frequent white beaches on which the fisher- 
men draw up their nets. I have passed down this portion 
of the river in a steamboat, and it was a pleasant sight to 
watch from its deck the fishermen dragging their seines on 
the distant shore, as in pictures of a foreign strand. At in- 
tervals you may meet with a schooner laden with lumber, 
standing up to Haverhill, or else lying at anchor or aground, 
waiting for wind or tide ; until, at last, you glide under the 
famous Chain Bridge, and are landed at Newburyport. 
Thus she who at first was " poore of waters, naked of 
renowne," having received so many fair tributaries, as was 
said of the Forth, 

Doth grow the greater still, the further downe ; 
Till that abounding both in power and fame. 
She long doth strive to give the sea her name ; 

or if not her name, in this case, at least the impulse of her 
stream. From the steeples of Newburyport, you may re- 
view this river stretching far up into the country, with many 
a white sail glancing over it like an inland sea, and behold, 
as one wrote who was born on its head-waters, " Down out 
at its mouth, the dark inky main blending with the blue 
above. Plum Island, its sand ridges scolloping along the 
horizon like the sea serpent, and the distant outline broken 
by many a tall ship, leaning, still, against the sky." 

Rising at an equal height with the Connecticut, the 
Merrimac reaches the sea by a course only half as long, 
and hence has no leisure to form broad and fertile meadows 
like the former, but is hurried along rapids, and down numer- 
ous falls without long delay. The banks are generally steep 
and high, with a narrow interval reaching back to the hills, 
which is only occasionally and partially overflown at present, 
and is much valued by the farmers. Between Chelmsford 



76 A WEEK. 

and Concord in New Hampshire, it varies from twenty to 
seventy-five rods in width. It is probably wider than it was 
formerly, in many places, owing to the trees having been cut 
down, and the consequent wasting away of its banks. The 
influence of the Pawtucket dam is felt as far up as Cromwell's 
Falls, and many think that the banks are being abraded and 
the river filled up again by this cause. Like all our rivers, it 
is liable to freshets, and the Pemigewasset has been known to 
rise twenty-five feet in a few hours. It is navigable for vessels 
of burden about twenty miles, for canal-boats by means of 
locks as far as Concord in New Hampshire, about seventy- 
five miles from its mouth, and for smaller boats to Plymouth, 
113 miles. A small steamboat once plied between Lowell 
and Nashua, before the railroad was built, and one now runs 
from Newburyport to Haverhill. 

Unfitted to some extent for the purposes of commerce by 
the sand-bar at its mouth, see how this river was devoted 
from the first to the service of manufactures. Issuing from 
the iron region of Franconia, and flowing through still un- 
cut forests, by inexhaustible ledges of granite, with Squam, 
and Winnepisiogee, and Newfound, and Massabesic lakes 
for its mill-ponds, it falls over a succession of natural dams, 
where it has been offering its privileges in vain for ages, 
until at last the Yankee race came to improve them. Stand- 
ing here at its mouth, look up its sparkling stream to its 
source, — a silver cascade which falls all the way from the 
White Mountains to the sea, — and behold a city on each 
successive plateau, a busy colony of human beaver around 
every fall. Not to mention Newburyport and Haverhill, 
see Lawrence, and Lowell, and Nashua, and Manchester, 
and Concord, gleaming one above the other. When at 
length it has escaped from under the last of the factories it 
has a level and unmolested passage to the sea, and a mere 
waste water, as it were, bearing lillle with it but its fame ; 
its pleasant course revealed by the morning fog which 



SUNDAY. 77 

hangs over it, and the sails of the few small vessels which 
transact the commerce of Haverhill and Ne\vbur3'port. 
But its real vessels are railroad cars, and its true and main 
stream, flowing by an iron channel further south, may be 
traced by a long line of vapor amid the hills, which no 
morning wind ever disperses, to where it empties into the 
sea at Boston. This side is the louder murmur now. In- 
stead of the scream of a fish-hawk scaring the fishes, is 
heard the whistle of the steam-engine, arousing a country 
to its progress. 

This river, too, was at length discovered by the white 
man, "trending up into the land," he knew not how far, 
possibly an inlet to the South Sea. Its valley, as far as the 
Winnepisiogee, was first surveyed in 1652. The first set- 
tlers of Massachusetts supposed that the Connecticut, in 
one part of its course, ran northwest, " so near the great 
lake as the Indians do pass their canoes into it over land." 
From which lake and the " hideous swamps " about it, as 
they supposed, came all the beaver that was traded be- 
tween Virginia and Canada, — and the Potomac was thought 
to come out of or from very near it. Afterward the Con- 
necticut came so near the course of the Merrimac that with 
a little pains they expect to divert the current of the trade 
into the latter river, and its profits from their Dutch neigh- 
bors into their own pockets. 

Unlike the Concord, the Merrimac is not a dead, but a 
living stream, though it has less life within its waters and 
on its banks. It has a swift current, and, in this part of its 
course, a clayey bottom, almost no weeds, and compara- 
tively few fishes. We looked down into its yellow water 
with the more curiosity, who were accustomed to the Nile- 
like blackness of the former river. Shad and alewives are 
taken here in their season, but salmon, though atone time 
more numerous than shad, are now more rare. Bass, 



78 A WEEK. 

also, are taken occasional!}^ ; but locks and dams have 
proved more or less destructive to the fisheries. The shad 
make their appearance early in May, at the same time with 
the blossoms of the pyrus, one of the most conspicuous 
early flowers, which is for this reason called the shad- 
blossom. An insect, callec'' the shad-fly, also appears at the 
same time, covering the houses and fences. We are told 
that " their greatest run is when the apple trees are in full 
blossom. The old shad return in August ; the young, three 
or four inches long, in September. These are very fond of' 
flies." A rather picturesque and luxurious mode of fishing 
was formerly practised on the Connecticut, at Bellows Falls, 
where a large rock divides the stream. " On the steep 
sides of the island rock," says Belknap, "hang several arm 
chairs, fastened to ladders, and secured by a counterpoise, 
in which fishermen sit to catch salmon and shad with dip- 
ping nets." The remains of Indian weirs, made of large 
stones, are still to be seen in the Winnepisiogee, one of the 
head-waters of this river. 

It cannot but affect our philosophy favorably to be re- 
minded of these shoals of migratory fishes, of salmon, shad, 
alewives, marsh bankers, and others, which penetrate up 
the innumerable rivers of our coast in the spring, even to 
the interior lakes, their scales gleaming in the sun ; and 
again, of the fry, which in still greater numbers wend their 
way downward to the sea. " And is it not pretty sport," 
wrote Capt. John Smith, who was on this coast as early as 
1614, "to pull up twopence, sixpence, and twelvepence as 
fast as you can haul and veer a line?" — "And what 
sport doth yield a more pleasing content and less hurt or 
charge than angling with a hook, and crossing the sweet air 
from isle to isle over the silent streams of a calm sea." 

On the sandy shore, opposite the glass-house village of 
Chelmsford, at the Great Bend, where we landed to rest us 



SUNDAY. 79 

and gather a few wild plums, we discovered the campanula 
rotundifolia, a new flower to us, the harebell of the poets, 
which is common to both hemispheres, growing close to the 
water. Here, in the shady branches of an apple tree on the 
sand, we took our nooning where there was not a zephyr to 
disturb the repose of this glorious Sabbath day, and we 
reflected serenely on the long past and successful labors of 
Latonia. 

So silent is the cessile air, 

That every cry and call, 
The hills and dales, and forest fair 

Again repeats them all. 

The herds beneath some leafy trees, 

Amidst the flowers they lie, 
The stable ships upon the seas 

Tend up their sails to dry. 

As we thus rested in the shade, or rowed leisurely along, 
we had recourse, from time to time, to the Gazetteer, which 
was our navigator, and from its bald natural facts extracted 
the pleasure of poetry. Beaver River comes in a little 
lower down, draining the meadows of Pelham, Windham, 
and Londonderry. The Scotch-Irish settlers of the latter 
town, according to this authority, were the first to introduce 
the potato into New England, as well as the manufacture of 
linen cloth. 

Everything that is printed and bound in a book contains 
some echo at least of the best that is in literature. Indeed, 
the best books have a use like sticks and stones, which is 
above or beside their design, not anticipated in the preface 
nor concluded in the appendix. Even Virgil's poetry serves 
a very different use to me to-day from what it did to his 
contemporaries. It has often an acquired and accidental 
value merely, proving that man is still man in the world. 
It is pleasant to meet with such still lines as ; 



8o A WEEK. 

'* Jam Ireto turgent in palmite gemni3e ; " 

Now the buds swell on the joyful stem ; 
" Strata jacent passim sua quoeque sub arbore poma." 

The apples lie scattered everywhere, each under its tree. 

In an ancient and dead language, any recognition of liv- 
ing nature attracts us. These are such sentences as were 
written while grass grew and water ran. It is no small 
recommendation when a book will stand the test of mere un- 
obstructed sunshine and daylight. 

What would we not give for some great poem to read 
now, which would be in harmony with the scenery, — for if 
men read aright, methinks they would never read anything 
but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their 
place. 

The wisest definition of poetry the poet will instantly 
prove false by setting aside its requisitions. We can, there- 
fore, publish only our advertisement of it. 

There is no doubt that the loftiest written wisdom is either 
rhymed, or in some way musically measured, — is, in form as 
well as substance, poetry ; and a voluine which should con- 
tain the condensed wisdom of mankind, need not have one 
rhythmless line. 

Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural 
fruit. As naturally as the oak bears the acorn, and the vine 
a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is 
the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a 
prose narrative of poetic deeds. What else have the Hin- 
doos, the Persians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians done 
that can be told ? It is the simplest relation of phenomena, 
and describes the commonest sensations with more truth 
than science does, and the latter at a distance slowly mimics 
its style and methods. The poet sings how the blood flows 
in his veins. He performs his functions, and is so well that 
he needs such stimulus to sing only as plants to put forth 
leaves and blossoms. He would strive in vain to modulate 



SUNDAY. 8l 

the remote and transient music which he sometimes hears, 
since his song is a vital function like breathing, and an in- 
tegral result like weight. It is not the overflowing of life, 
but of its subsidence rather, and is drawn from under the 
feet of the poet. It is enough if Homer but say the sun 
sets. He is as serene as nature, and we can hardly detect 
the enthusiasm of the bard. It is as if nature spoke. He 
presents to us the simplest pictures of human life, so that 
childhood itself can understand them, and the man must 
not think twice to appreciate his naturalness. Each reader 
discovers for himself, that, with respect to the simpler fea- 
tures of nature, succeeding poets have done little else 
than copy his similes. His memorable passages are as nat- 
urally bright as gleams of sunshine in misty weather. Na- 
ture furnishes him not only with words, but with stereotyped 
lines and sentences from her mint. 

As from the clouds appears the full moon. 

All shining, and then again it goes behind the shadowy clouds, 

So Hector, at one time appeared among the foremost. 

And at another in the rear, commanding ; and all with brass 

He shone, like to the lightning of regis-bearing Zeus. 

He conveys the least information, even the hour of the 
day, with such magnificence and vast expense of natural 
imagery, as if it were a message from the gods. 

While it was dawn, and sacred day was advancing. 

For that space the weapons both flew fast, and the people fell ; 

But when now the woodcutter was preparing his morning meal. 

In the recesses of the mountain, and had wearied his hands 

With cutting lofty trees, and satiety came to his mind, 

And the desire of sweet food took possession of his thoughts ; 

Then the Danaans, by their valor, broke the phalanxes, 

Shouting to their companions from rank to rank. 

When the army of the Trojans passed the night under 
arms, keeping watch lest the enemy should re-embark 
under cover of the dark, 



82 A VVLEK. 

They, thinking great things, upon the neutral ground of war 

Sat all the night ; and many fires buined for them. 

As when in the heavens the stars round the bright moon 

Appear beautiful, and the air is without wind ; 

And all the heights, and the extreme summits, 

And the wooded sides of the mountains appear ; and from the heavens 

an infinite ether is diffused. 
And all the stars are seen ; and the shepherd rejoices in his heart ; 
So between the ships and the streams of Xanthus 
Appeared the fires of the Trojans before Ilium. 
A thousand fires buined on the plain ; and by each 
Sat fifty, in the light of the blazing fire ; 
And horses eating white barley and corn, 
Standing by the chariots, awaited fair-throned Aurora. 

The " white-armed goddess Juno," sent by the father of 
gods and men for Iris and Apollo, 

Went down the Idnean mountains to far Olympus, 

As when the mind of a man, who has come over much earth. 

Sallies forth, and he reflects with rapid thoughts. 

There was I, and there, and remembers many things ; 

So swiftly the august Juno hastening flew through the air, 

And came to high Olympus. 

His scenery is always true, and not invented. He does 
not leap in imagination from Asia to Greece, through mid- 
air, 

knEifj fiaXa noXka fitra^v 

'Ovped TE oKioevTa, -^aXaaca re i/p(r/Eaaa. 

for there are very many 
Shady mountains and resounding seas between. 

If his messengers repair but to the tent of Achilles, we 
do not wonder how they got there, but accompany them 
step by step along the shore of the resounding sea, 
Nestor's account of the march of the Pylians against the 
Epeians is extremely lifelike. 

Then rose up to them sweet-worded Nestor, the shrill orator of the 

Pylians, 
And words sweeter than honey flowed from his tongue. 



SUNDAY. 83 

This time, however, he addresses Patroclus alone. " A 
certain river, Minyas by name, leaps seaward near to 
Arene, where we Pylians wait the dawn, both horse and 
foot. Thence with all haste we sped as on the morrow ere 
'twas noonday, accoutered for the fight, even to Alpheus' 
sacred source," etc. We fancy that we hear the subdued 
murmuring of the Minyas discharging its waters into the 
main the live-long night, and the hollow sound of the 
waves breaking on the shore — until at length we are cheered 
at the close of a toilsome march by the gurgling fountains 
of Alpheus. 

There are few books which are fit to be remembered 
in our wisest hours, but the Iliad is brightest in the serenest 
days, and embodies still all the sunlight that fell on Asia 
Minor. No modern joy or ecstasy of ours can lower its 
height, or dim its luster, but there it lies in the east of 
li,terature, as it were, the earliest and latest production 
of the mind. The ruins of Egypt oppress and stifle us 
with their dust, foulness preserved in cassia and pitch, and 
swathed in linen ; the death of that which never lived. 
But the rays of Greek poetry struggle down to us, and 
mingle with the sunbeams of the recent day. The statue of 
Memnon is cast down, but the shaft of the Iliad still meets 
the sun in his rising. 

Homer is gone ; and where is Jove ! and where 

The rival cities seven ! His song outlives 

Time, tower, and god, — all that then was save Heaven. 

So too, no doubt. Homer had his Homer, and Orpheus 
his Orpheus, in the dim antiquity which preceded them. 
The mythological system of the ancients, and it is still the 
mythology of the moderns, the poem of mankind, inter- 
woven so wonderfully with their astronomy, and matching 
in grandeur and harmony the architecture of the heavens 
themselves, seems to point to a time when a mightier 



84 A WIKK. 

genius inhabited the earth. But after all, man is the great 
poet, and not Homer nor Shakespeare ; and our language 
itself, and the common arts of life are his work. Poetry is 
so universally true and independent of experience, that it 
does not need any particular biography to illustrate it, but 
we refer it sooner or later to some Orpheus or Linus, and 
after ages to the genius of humanity, and the gods them- 
selves. 

It would be worth the while to select our reading, for 
books are the society we keep ; to read only the serenely 
true ; never statistics, nor fiction, nor news, nor reports, 
nor periodicals, but only great poems, and when they failed, 
read them again, or perchance write more. Instead of 
other sacrifice, we might oflfer up our perfect [TeXsla) 
thoughts to the gods daily, in hymns or psalms. For we 
should be at the helm at least once a day. The whole of 
the day should not be day-time ; there should be one hour, 
if no more, which the day did not bring forth. Scholars 
are wont to sell their birthright for a mess of learning. 
But is it necessary to know what the speculator prints, or 
the thoughtless study, or the idle read, the literature of the 
Russians and the Chinese, or even French philosophy and 
much of German criticism. Read the best books first, or 
you may not have a chance to read them at all. " There 
are the worshipers with offerings, and the worshipers with 
mortifications ; and again the worshipers with enthusiastic 
devotion ; so there are those, the wisdom of whose reading 
is their worship, men of subdued passions, and severe 
manners ; this world is not for him who doth not 
worship; and where, O Arjoon, is there another?" Cer- 
tainly, we do not need to be soothed and entertained 
always like children. He who resorts to the easy nm-el, 
because he is languid, does no better than if he took a nap. 
The front aspect of great thoughts can only be enjoyed by 



SlINDAY. 85 

those who stand on the side wlieiice they arrive. Books, 
not which afford us a cowering; enjoyment, but in which 
each thought is of unusual daring ; such as an idle man 
cannot read, and a timid one woukl not be entertained by, 
which even make us dangerous to existing institutions — 
such call I good books. 

All that are printed and bound are not books ; they do 
not necessarily belong to letters, but are oftener to be 
ranked with the other luxuries and appendages of civilized 
life. Base wares are palmed off under a thousand disguises. 
" The way to trade," as a peddler once told me, "is to//// 
it right throug/i," no matter what it is, anything that is 
agreed on. 

You yrov'ling worldlings, you whose wisdom trades 
Where light ne'er shot his golden ray. 

By dint of able writing and pen-craft, books are cunningly 
compiled, and have their run and success even among the 
learned, as if they were the result of a new man's thinking, 
and their birth were attended with some natural tiiroes. 
But in a little while their covers fall off, for no binding will 
avail, and it appears that they are not liooks or I'ibles at 
all. There are new and patented inventions in this shape, 
purporting to be for the elevation of the race, which many 
a pure scholar and genius who has learned to read is for a 
moment deceived by, and finds himself reading a horse- 
rake, or spinning jenny, or wooden nutmeg, or oak-leaf 
cigar, or steam-power press, or kitchen range, perchance, 
when he was seeking serene and Biblical truths. 

Merchants, arise, 
And mingle conscience with your merchandise. 

Paper is cheap, and authors need not now erase one book 
before they write another. Instead of cultivating the earth 
for wheat and pcjtatoes, they cultivate literature, and fill a 



86 A WEEli. 

place in tlie Republic of Letters. Or they would fain write 
for fame merely, as others actually raise crops of grain to 
be distilled into brandy. Books are for the most part will- 
f:illy and hastily written, as parts of a system, to supply a 
want real or imagined. Books of natural history aim com- 
monly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God's prop- 
erty, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the 
divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the 
popular method of studying nature, and make haste to con- 
duct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where 
the professors always dwell. 

To Athens gown'd he goes, and from that school 
Returns unsped, a more instructed fool. 

They teach the elements really of ignorance, not of knowl- 
edge, for to speak deliberately and in view of the highest 
truths, it is not easy to distinguish elementary knowledge. 
There is a chasm between knowledge and ignorance which 
the arches of science can never span. A book should con- 
tain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra firina, though by 
shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of navigation by 
those who have never been out of sight of land. They must 
not yield wheat and potatoes, but must themselves be the 
unconstrained and natural harvest of their author's lives. 

What I have learned is mine ; I've had my thought. 
And me the Muses noble truths have taught. 

AVe do not learn much from learned books, but from true, 
sincere, human books, from frank and honest biographies. 
The life of a good man will hardly improve us more than 
the life of a freebooter, for the inevitable laws appear as 
plainly in the infringement as in the observance, and our 
lives are sustained by a nearly equal expense of virtue of 
some kind. The decaying tree, while yet it lives, demands 
sun, wind, and rain no less than the green one. It secretes 



sundav. 87 

Sap and performs the functions of health. If we choose, 
we may study the alburnum only. The gnarled stump has 
as tender a bud as the sapling. 

At least let us have healthy books, a stout horse-rake or 
a kitchen range which is not cracked. Let not the poet 
shed tears only for the public weal. He should be as 
vigorous as a sugar maple, with sap enough to maintain his 
own verdure, beside what runs into the troughs, and not 
like a vine, which, being cut in the spring, bears no fruit, 
but bleeds to death in the endeavor to heal its wounds. 
I'he poet is he that hath fat enough, like bears and mar- 
mots, to suck his claws all winter. He hibernates in this 
world, and feeds on his own marrow. It is pleasant to 
think in winter, as we walk over the snowy pastures, of 
those happy dreamers that lie under the sod, of dormice 
and all that race of dormant creatures, which have such a 
superfluity of life enveloped in thick folds of fur, imper- 
vious to cold. Alas, the poet too is, in one sense, a sort of 
dormouse gone into winter quarters of deep and serene 
thoughts, insensible to surrounding circumstances ; his 
words are the relation of his oldest and finest memory, a 
wisdom drawn from the remotest experience. Other men 
lead a starved existence, meanwhile, like hawks, that would 
fain keep on the wing and trust to pick up a sparrow now 
and then. 

There are already essays and poems, the growth of this 
land, which are not in vain, all which, however, we could 
conveniently have stowed in the till of our chest. If the 
gods permitted their own inspiration to be breathed in 
vain, these might be overlooked in the crowd, but the 
accents of truth are as sure to be heard at last on earth as 
in heaven. They already seem ancient, and in some meas- 
ure have lost the traces of their modern birth. Here are 
they who 



88 A WEEK. •" 

Ask for that which is our whole life's light, 
For the perpetual, true, and clear insight, 

I remember a few sentences which sprhig like the sward in 
its native pasture, where its roots were never disturbed, and 
not as if spread over a sandy embanlcment ; answering to 
the poet's prayer, 

Let us set so just 
A rate on knowledge, that the world may trust 
The poet's sentence, and not still aver 
Each art is to itself a flatterer. 

But, above all, in our native port, did we not frequent the 
peaceful games of the Lyceum, from which a new era will 
be dated to New England, as from the games of Greece. 
For if Herodotus carried his history to Olympia to read, 
after the cestus and the race, have we not heard such his- 
tories recited there, which since our countrymen have read, 
as made Greece sometimes to be forgotten ? Philosophy, 
too, has there her grove and portico, not wholly unfre- 
quented in these days. 

Lately the victor, whom all Pindars praised, has won an- 
other palm, contending with 

Olympian bards who sung 
Divine ideas below. 
Which always find us young, 
And always keep us so. 

What earth or sea, mountain or stream, or Muses' spring 
or grove, is safe from his all-searching ardent eye, who 
drives off Phoebus's beaten track, visits unwonted zones, 
makes the gelid Hyperboreans glow and the old polar ser- 
pent writhe, and many a Nile flow back and hide his head ! 

That Phaeton of our day, 
Who'd make another milky way, 
And burn the world up with his ray ; 



From /lis 



SUNDAY. 89 

By us an undisputed seer, — 
Who'd drive his flaming car so near 
Unto our shuddering mortal sphere, 

Disgracing all our slender worth, 
And scorching up the living earth, 
To prove his heavenly birth. 

The silver spokes, the golden tire. 
Are glowing with unwonted fire. 
And ever nigher roll and nigher ; 

The pins and axle melted are, 

The silver radii fly afar, 

Ah, he will spoil his father's car ! 

Who let him have the steeds he cannot steer ? 
Henceforth the sun will not shine for a year. 
And we shall Ethiops all appear. 

lips of cunning fell 
The thrilling Delphic oracle. 



And yet, sometimes, 

We should not mind if on our ear there fell 
Some less of cunning, more of oracle. 

It is Apollo shining in your face. O rare contemporary, 
let us have far off heats. Give us the subtler, the heaven- 
lier though fleeting beauty, which passes through and 
through, and dwells not in the verse ; even pure water, 
which but reflects those tints which wine wears in its grain. 
Let epic trade-winds blow, and cease this waltz of inspira- 
tions. Let us oftener feel even the gentle southwest wind 
upon our cheeks blowing from the Indian's heaven. What 
though we lose a thousand meteors from the sky, if skyey 
depths, if star-dust and undissolvable nebulae remain ? 
What though we lose a thousand wise responses of the 
oracle, if we may have instead some natural acres of Ionian 
earth ? 



90 A WEEK. 

Though we know well, 

That 'tis not in the power of kings [or presidents] to raise 
A spirit for verse that is not born thereto, 
Nor are they born in every prince's days ; 

yet spite of all they sang in praise of their " Eliza's reign," 
we have evidence that poets may be born and sing in our 
day, in the presidency of James K. Polk, 

" And that the utmost powers of English rhyme," 
Were not " within her peaceful reign confined." 

The prophecy of Samuel Daniel, is already how much more 
than fulfilled ! 

And who in time knows whither we may vent 
The treasure of our tongue ? To what strange shores 
This gain of our best glory shall be sent, 
T'enrich unknowing nations with our stores ? 
What worlds in th' yet unformed Occident, 
May come refined with the accents that are ours. 

Enough has been said in these days of the charm of 
fluent writing. We hear it complained of some works of 
genius that they have fine thoughts, but are irregular and 
have no flow. But even the mountain peaks in the horizon 
are, to the eye of science, parts of one range. We should 
consider that the flow of thought is more like a tidal wave 
than a prone river, and is the result of a celestial influence, 
not of any declivity in its channel. The river flows because 
it runs down hill, and descends the faster as it flows more 
rapidly. The reader who expects to float down stream for 
the whole voyage, may well complain of nauseating swells 
and choppings of the sea when his frail shore-craft gets 
amidst the billows of the ocean stream, which flows as much 
to sun and moon as lesser streams to it. But if we would 
appreciate the flow that is in these books, we must expect 
to feel it rise from the page like an exhalation, and wash 
away our critical brains like burr millstones, flowing to 



SUNDAY. 91 

higher levels above and behind ourselves. There is many 
a book which ripples on like a freshet, and flows as glibly 
as a mill-stream sucking under a causeway ; and when 
their authors are in the full tide of their discourse, Pythag- 
oras, and Plato, and Jamblichus, halt beside them. Their 
long stringy slimy sentences are of that consistency that 
they naturally flow and run together. They read as if 
written for military men, for men of business, there is such 
a dispatch in them. Compared with these, the grave thinkers 
and philosophers seem not to have got their swaddling 
clothes off ; they are slower than a Roman army in its 
march, the rear camping to-night where the van camped 
last night. The wise Jamblichus eddies and gleams like a 
watery slough. 

How many thousand never heard the name 

Of Sidney, or of Spenser, or their books ? 
And yet brave fellows, and presume of fame, 

And seem to bear down all the world with looks. 

The ready writer seizes the pen, and shouts, Forward ! 
Alamo and Fanning ! and after rolls the tide of war. The 
very walls and fences seem to travel. But the most rapid 
trot is no flow after all, — and thither you and I, at least, 
reader, will not follow. 

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. 
For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the 
thought ; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the 
morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens with- 
out their azure. The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, 
not the wisest, but the surest and roundest. They are spoken 
firmly and conclusively, as if the speaker had a right to know 
what he says, and if not wise, they have at least been well 
learned. Sir Walter Raleigh might well be studied if only for 
the excellence of his style, for he is remarkable in the midst of 
so many masters. There is a natural emphasis in his style, 
like a man's tread, and a breathing space between the sen- 



92 A WEEK. 

tences, which the best of modern writuig does not furnish. 
His chapters are lilce English parks, or say rather like a 
western forest, where the larger growth keeps down the 
underwood, and one may ride on horseback through the 
openings. All the distinguished writers of that period 
possess a greater vigor and naturalness than the more 
modern, — for it is allowed to slander our own time, — and 
when we read a quotation from one of them in the midst of 
a modern author, we seem to have come suddenly upon a 
greener ground, a greater depth and strength of soil. It is 
as if a green bough were laid across the page, and we are 
refreshed as by the sight of fresh grass in midwinter or 
early spring. You have constantly the warrant of life and 
experience in what you read. The little that is said is eked 
out by implication of the much that was done. The sentences 
are verdurous and blooming as evergreen and flowers, 
because they are rooted in fact and experience, but our 
false and florid sentences have only the tints of flowers with- 
out their sap or roots. All men are really most attracted 
by the beauty of plain speech, and they even write in a florid 
style in imitation of this. They prefer to be misunderstood 
rather than to come short of its exuberance. Hussein 
Effendi praised the epistolary style of Ibrahim Pasha to the 
French traveler Botta, because of " the difficulty of under- 
standing it ; there was," he said " but one person at Jidda, 
who was capable of understanding and explaining the Pasha's 
correspondence." A man's whole life is taxed for the least 
thing well done. It is its net result. Every sentence is 
the result of a long probation. Where shall we look for 
standard English, but to the words of a standard man ? 
The word which is best said came nearest to not being 
spoken at all, for it is cousin to a deed which the speaker 
could have better done. Nay, almost it must have taken 
the place of a deed by some urgent necessity, even by some 
misfortune, so that the truest writer will be some captive 



SUNDAY, 



93 



knight, after all. And perhaps the fates had such a design, 
when, having stored Raleigh so richly with the substance of 
life and experience, they made him a fast prisoner, and 
compelled him to make his words his deeds, and transfer to 
his expression the emphasis and sincerity of his action. 

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly 
out of proportion to the use they commonly serve. We are 
amused to read how Ben Jonson engaged, that the dull 
masks with which the royal family and nobility were to be 
entertained, should be " grounded upon antiquity and solid 
learning." Can there be any greater reproach than an idle 
learning? Learn to split wood, at least. The necessity of 
labor and conversation with many men and things, to the 
scholar is rarely well remembered ; steady labor with the 
hands, which engrosses the attention also, is unquestionably 
the best method of removing palaver and sentimentality out 
of one's style, both of speaking and writing. If he has 
worked hard from morning till night, though he may have 
grieved that he could not be watching the train of his 
thoughts during that time, yet the few hasty lines which at 
evening record his day's experience will be more musical 
and true than his freest but idle fancy could have furnished. 
Surely the writer is to address a world of laborers, and 
such therefore must be his discipline. He will not idly 
dance at his work who has wood to cut and cord before 
nightfall in the short days of winter ; but every stroke will 
be husbanded, and ring soberly through the wood ; and so 
will the strokes of that scholar's pen, which at evening re- 
cord the story of the day, ring soberly, yet cheerily, on the 
ear of the reader, long after the echoes of his ax have died 
away. The scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher 
truth for the callouses on his palms. They give firmness to 
the sentence. Indeed the mind never makes a great and 
successful effort without a corresponding energy of the 
body. We are often struck by the force and precision of 



94 



A WEEK. 



Style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, 
easily attain, when required to make the effort. As if plain- 
ness, and vigor, and sincerity, the ornaments of style, were 
better learned on the farm and in the workshop than in the 
schools. The sentences written by such rude hands are 
nervous and tough, like hardened thongs, the sinews of the 
deer, or the roots of the pine. As for the graces of expres- 
sion, a great thought is never found in a mean dress ; but 
though it proceed from the lips of the Woloffs, the nine 
Muses and the three Graces will have conspired to clothe 
it in fit phrase. Its education has always been liberal, and 
its implied wit can endow a college. The scholar might 
frequently emulate the propriety and emphasis of the 
farmer's call to his team, and confess that if that were writ- 
ten it would surpass his labored sentences. Whose are the 
truely /a/^t^r^^ sentences ? From the weak and flimsy periods 
of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn 
even to the description of work, the simple record of the 
month's labor in the farmer's almanac, to restore our tone 
and spirits. A sentence should read as if its author, had he 
held a plow instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow 
deep and straight to the end. The scholar requires hard 
and serious labor to give an impetus to his thoughts. He 
will learn to grasp the pen firmly so, and wield it gracefully 
and effectively, as an ax or a sword. When we consider 
the weak and nerveless periods of some literary men, who 
perchance in feet and inches come up to the standard of 
their race, and are not deficient in girth also, we are 
amazed at the immense sacrifice of thews and sinews. 
What ! these porportions, — these bones, — and this their 
work ! Hands which could have felled an ox have hewed 
this fragile matter which would not have tasked a lady's 
fingers ! Can this be a stalwart man's work, who has a 
marrow in his back and a tendon Achilles in his heel ! They 
who set up the blocks of Stonehenge did somewhat, if they 



SUNDAY. 95 

only laid out their strength for once, and stretched them- 
selves. 

Yet, after all, the truly efficient laborer will not crowd his 
day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a 
wide halo of ease and leisure, and then do but what he loves 
best. He is anxious only about the fruitful kernels of time. 
Though the hen should sit all day, she could lay only one 
egg, and, besides, would not have picked up materials for 
another. Let a man take time enough for the most trivial 
deed, though it be but the paring of his nails. The buds 
swell imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion, as if the 
short spring days were an eternity. 

Then spend an age in whetting thy desire, 
Thou need'st not hasten if thou dost stand fast. 

Some hours seem not to be occasion for any deed, but for 
resolves to draw breath in. We do not directly go about 
the execution of the purpose that thrills us, but shut our 
doors behind us, and ramble with prepared mind, as if the 
half were already done. Our resolution is taking' root or 
hold on the earth then, as seeds first send a shoot downward 
which is fed by their own albumen, ere they send one upward 
to the light. 

There is a sort of homely truth and naturalness in some 
books which is very rare to find, and yet looks cheap enough. 
There may be nothing lofty in the sentiment, or fine in the 
expression, but it is careless country talk. Homeliness is 
almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader 
would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high 
art. Some have this merit only. The scholar is not apt to 
make his mo.st familiar experience come gracefully to the 
aid of his expression. Very few men can speak of Nature, 
for instance, with any truth. They overstep her modesty, 
somehow or other, and confer no favor. They do not speak 
a good word for her. ]\Iostcry better than they speak, and 



96 A WEEK. 

you can get more nature out of them by pinching than 
by addressing them. The surliness with which the wood- 
chopper speaks of his woods, handUng them as indifferently 
as his ax, is better than the mealy-mouthed enthusiasm of 
the lover of nature. Better that the primrose by the river's 
brim be a yellow primrose, and nothing more, than that it be 
something less. Aubrey relates of Thomas Fuller that his 
was " a very working head, insomuch, that walking and 
meditating before dinner, he would eat up a penny loaf, not 
knowing that he did it. His natural memory was very great, 
to which he added the art of memory. He would'repeat to 
you forwards and backwards all the signs from Ludgate to 
Charing Cross." He says of Mr, John Hales, that " He 
loved Canarie," and was buried " under an altar monument 

of black marble with a too long epitaph " ; 

of Edmund Halley, that he "at sixteen could make a dial, 
and then, he said, he thought himself a brave fellow" ; of 
William Holder, who wrote a book upon his curing one 
Popham who was deaf and dumb, " he was beholding to no 
author ; did only consult with nature." For the most part, 
an author consults only with all who have written before him 
upon a subject, and his book is but the advice of so many. 
But a good book will never have been forestalled, but the 
topic itself will in one sense be new, and its author, by con- 
sulting with nature, will consult not only with those who 
have gone before, but with those who maj' come after. 
There is always room and occasion enough for a true book 
on any subject ; as there is room for more light the brightest 
day and more rays will not interfere with the first. 

We thus worked our way up this river, gradually adjust- 
ing our thoughts to novelties, beholding from its placid 
bosom a new nature and new works of men, and as it were 
with increasing confidence, finding nature still habitable, 
genial, and propitious to us ; not following any beaten 



SUNDAY. 97 

patl), but the windings of the river, as ever the nearest way 
for us. Fortunatel}^ we had no business in this country. 
The Concord had rarely been a river or rivus, but barely 
Jliivius, or between fluvius and lacus. This Merrimac 
was neither riinis nor fluvius nor lacus, but rather 
amnis here, a gently swelling and stately rolling flood 
approaching the sea. We could even sympathize with its 
buoyant tide, going to seek its fortune in the ocean, and 
anticipating the time when, "being received within the plain 
of its freer water," it should " beat the shores for banks," 

campoque recepta 
Liberioris aqu.x, pro ripis litora pulsant. 

At length we doubled a low shrubby islet, called Rabbit 
Island, subjected alternately to the sun and to the waves, 
as desolate as if it lay some leagues within the icy sea, and 
found ourselves in a narrovver part of the river, near the 
sheds and yards for picking the stone known as the 
Chelmsford granite, which is quarried in Chelmsford and 
the neighboring towns. We passed Wicasuck Island, 
which contains seventy acres or more, on our right be- 
tween Chelmsford and Tyngsboro'. This was a favorite 
residence of the Indians. According to the History of 
Dunstable, "About 1663, the eldest son of Passaconaway 
[Chief of the Penacooks], was thrown into jail for a debt 
of ^45, due to John Tinker, by one of his tribe, and which 
he had promised verbally should be paid. To relieve 
him from his imprisonment, his brother Wannalancet 
and others, who owned Wicasuck Island, sold it and paid 
the debt." It was, however, restored to the Indians by 
the General Court in 1665. After the departure of the 
Indians in 1683, it was granted to Jonathan Tyng in 
payment for his services to the colony, in maintaining a 
garrison at his house. Tyng's house stood not far from 
Wicasuck Falls. Gookin, who, in his Epistle Dedicatory to 



98 A WEEK. 

Robert Boyle, apologizes for presenting his " matter clothed 
in a wilderness dress," says that on the breaking out of 
Philip's war-in 1675, there were taken up by the Christian 
Indians and the English in Marlborough, and sent to 
Cambridge, seven " Indians belonging to Narragansett, 
Long Island, and Pequod, who had all been at work about 
seven weeks with one Mr. Jonathan Tyng, of Dunstable, 
upon Merrimac River ; and hearing of the war, they reck- 
oned with their master, and getting their wages, conveyed 
themselves away without his privity, and being afraid, 
marched secretly through the woods, designing to go to 
their own country." However, they were released soon after. 
Such were the hired men in those days. Tyng was the first 
permanent settler of Dunstable, which then embraced what 
is now Tyngsboro' and many other towns. In the winter 
of 1675, in Philip's war, every other settler left the town, 
but " he," says the historian of Dunstable, " fortified his 
house ; and although ' obliged to send to Boston for his 
food,' sat himself down in the midst of his savage enemies, 
alone, in the wilderness, to defend his home. Deeming 
his position an important one for the defense of the frontiers, 
in February, 1676, he petitioned the Colony for aid," 
humbly showing, as his petition runs, that as he lived " in 
the uppermost house on Merrimac River, lying open to ye 
enemy, yet being so seated that it is, as it were, a watch- 
house to the neighboring towns," he could render impor- 
tant service to his country if only he had some assistance, 
'"there being," he said, "never an inhabitant left in the 
town but myself." Wherefore he requests that their 
"Honors would be pleased \.o ox(\.tx \{\v!\ three or four men 
to help garrison his said house," which they did. But 
■ methinks that such a garrison would be weakened by the 
addition of a man. 

Make bandog thy scout watch to bark at a thief, 
Make courage for life, to be capitain chief ; 



SUNDAY. 99 

Make trap-door thy bulwark, make bell to begin, 
Make gunstone and arrow shew who is within. 

Thus he earned the title of first permanent settler. In 
1694 a law was passed " that every settler who deserted a 
town for fear of the Indians, should forfeit all his rights 
therein." But now, at any rate, as I have frequently ob- 
served, a man may desert the fertile frontier territories of 
truth and justice, which are the State's best lands, for fear 
of far more insignificant foes, without forfeiting any of his 
civil rights therein. Nay, townships are granted to 
deserters, and the General Court, as I am sometimes in- 
clined to regard it, is but a deserters' camp itself. 

As we rowed along near the shore of Wicasuck Island, 
which was then covered with wood, in order to avoid the 
current, two men, who looked as if they had just run out of 
Lowell, where they had been waylaid by the Sabbath, mean- 
ing to go to Nashua, and who now found themselves in the 
strange, natural, uncultivated and unsettled part of the 
globe which intervenes, full of walls and barriers, a rough 
and uncivil place to them, seeing our boat moving so 
smoothly up the stream, called out from the high bank 
above our heads to know if we would take them as passen- 
gers, as if this were the street they had missed*; that they 
might sit and chat and drive away the time, and so at last 
find themselves in Nashua. This smooth way they much 
preferred. But our boat was crowded with necessary furni- 
ture, and sunk low in the water, and moreover required to 
be worked, for even it did not progress against the stream 
without effort ; so we were obliged to deny them passage. 
As we glided away with even sweeps, while the fates scat- 
tered oil in our course, the sun now sinking behind the 
alders on the distant shore, we could still see them far off 
over the water, running along the shore and climbing over 
the rocks and fallen trees like insects, — for they did not 
know any better than we that they were on an island, — the 



lOO A WEEK, 

unsympathizing river ever flowing in an opposite direction ; 
until, having reached the entrance of the Island Brook, 
which they had probably crossed upon the locks below, 
they found a more effectual barrier to their progress. 
They seemed to be learning much in a little time. Thev 
ran about like ants on a burning brand, and once more 
they tried the river here, and once more there, to see if 
water still indeed was not to be walked on, as if a new 
thought inspired them, and by some peculiar disposition of 
the limbs they could accomplish it. At length sober com- 
mon sense seemed to have resumed its sway, and they con- 
cluded that what they had so long heard must be true, and 
resolved to ford the shallower stream. When nearly a mile 
distant we could see them stripping off their clothes and 
preparing for this experiment ; yet it seemed likely that a 
new dilemma would arise, they were so thoughtlessly 
throwing away their clothes on the wrong side of the 
stream, as in the case of the countryman with his corn, his 
fox, and his goose, which had to be transported one at a 
time. Whether they got safely through, or went round by 
the locks we never learned. We could not help being 
struck by the seeming, though innocent indifference of 
Nature to these men's necessities, while elsewhere she was 
equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret 
of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest 
merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pil- 
grim's shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop 
shell. 

We, too, who held the middle of the stream, came near 
experiencing a pilgrim's fate, being tempted to pursue what 
seemed a sturgeon or larger fish, for we remembered that 
this was the Sturgeon River, its dark and monstrous back 
alternately rising and sinking in mid-stream. We kept fall- 
ing behind, but the fish kept his back well out, and did not 
dive, and seemed to prefer to swim against the stream, so, 



SUNDAY. TOl 

at any rate, he would not escape us by going out to sea. 
At length, having got as near as was convenient, and look- 
ing out not to get a blow from his tail, now the bow-gunner 
delivered his charge, while the stern-man held his ground. 
But the halibut-skinned monster, in one of these swift- 
gliding pregnant moments, without ever ceasing his bob- 
bing up and down, saw fit, without a chuckle or other pre- 
lude, to proclaim himself a huge imprisoned spar, placed 
there as a buoy, to warn sailors of sunken rocks. So, each 
casting some blame upon the other, we withdrew quickly to 
safer waters. 

The Scene-shifter saw fit here to close the drama of this 
day, without regard to any unities which we mortals prize. 
Whether it might have proved tragedy, or comedy, or tragi- 
comedy, or pastoral, we cannot tell. This Sunday ended 
by the going down of the sun, leaving us still on the waves. 
But they who are on the water enjoy a longer and brighter 
twilight than they who are on the land, for here the water, 
as well as the atmosphere, absorbs and reflects the light, 
and some of the day seems to have sunk down into the 
waves. The light gradually forsook the deep water, as 
well as the deeper air, and the gloaming came to the fishes 
as well as to us, and more dim and gloomy to them, whose 
day is a perpetual twilight, though sufficiently bright for 
their weak and watery eyes. Vespers had already rung in 
many a dim and watery chapel down below, where the 
shadows of the weeds were extended in length over the 
sandy floor. The vespertinal pout had already begun to 
flit on leathern fin, and the finny gossips withdrew from the 
fluvial street to creeks and coves, and other private haunts, 
excepting a few of stronger fin, which anchored in the 
stream, stemming the tide even in their dreams. Meanwhile, 
like a dark evening cloud, we were wafted over the cope of 
their sky, deepening the shadows on their deluged field. 

Having reached a retired part of the river where it spread 



lo2 A Week. 

out to sixty rods in width, we pitched our tent on the east 
side, in Tyngsboro', just above some patches of the beach 
plum, which was now nearly ripe, where the sloping bank 
was a sufficient pillow, and with the bustle of sailors making 
the land, we transferred such stores as were required from 
boat to tent, an \ hung a lantern to the tent-pole, and so our 
house was ready. With a buffalo spread on the grass, and 
a blanket for our covering, our bed was soon made. A 
fire cracked merrily before the entrance, so near that we 
could tend it without stepping abroad, and when we had 
supped, we put out the blaze and closed the door, and with 
the semblance of domestic comfort, sat up to read the gazet- 
teer, to learn our latitude and longitude, and write the jour- 
nal of the voyage, or listened to the wind and the rippling 
of the river till sleep overtook us. There we lay under an 
oak on the bank of the stream, near to some farmer's corn- 
field, getting sleep, and forgetting where we were ; a great 
blessing, that we are obliged to forget our enterprises every 
twelve hours. Minks, muskrats, meadow-mice, woodchucks, 
squirrels, skunks, rabbits, foxes and weasels, all inhabit near, 
but keep very close while you are there. The riv^r sucking 
and eddying away all night down toward the marts and the 
sea-board, a great work and freshet, and no small enterprise 
to reflect on. Instead of the Scythian vastness of the Bil- 
lerica night, and its wild musical sounds, we were kept awake 
by the boisterous sport of some Irish laborers on the rail- 
road, wafted to us over the water, still unwearied and un- 
resting on this seventh day, who would not have done with 
whirling up and down the track with ever-increasing veloc- 
ity and still reviving shouts, till late in the night. 

One sailor was visited in his dreams this night by the 
Evil Destinies, and all those powers that are hostile to hu- 
man life, which constrain and oppress the minds of men, and 
make their path seem difficult and narrow, and beset with 
dangers, so that the most innocent and worthy enterprises 



SUNDAY. 105 

appear insolent and a tempting of fate, and the gods go not 
with us. But the other happily passed a serene and even am- 
brosial or immortal night, and his sleep was dreamless, or 
only the atmosphere of pleasant dreams remained, a happy 
natural sleep until the morning, and his cheerful spirit 
soothed and reassured his brother, for whenever they meet, 
the Good Genius is sure to prevail. 



MONDAY. 



I thynke for to touche also 

The worlde whiche neweth everie daie, 

So as I can, so as I maie. 

Gozuer, 

Gazed on the Heavens for what he missed on Earth. 

Britannia's Pastorals. 



When the first light dawned on the earth, and the birds 
awoke, and the brave river was heard rippling confidently 
seaward, and the nimble early rising wind rustled the oak 
leaves about our tent, all men, having reinforced their bodies 
and their souls with sleep, and cast aside doubt and fear, 
were invited to unattempted adventures. 

One of us took the boat over to the opposite shore, 
which was flat and accessible, a quarter of a mile distant, to 
empty it of water and wash out the clay, while the other 
kindled a fire and got breakfast ready. At an early hour we 
were again on our way, rowing through the fog as before, 
the river already awake, and a million crisped waves come 
forth to meet the sun when he should show himself. The 
countrymen, recruited by their day of rest, were already 
stirring, and had begun to cross the ferry on the business 
of the week. This ferry was as busy as a beaver dam, and 
all the world seemed anxious to get across the Merrimac 
River at this particular point, waiting to get set over, — 
children with their two cents done up in paper, jail-birds 
broke loose and constable with warrant, travelers from dis- 
tant lands to distant lands, men and women to whom the 
Merrimac River was a bar. There stands a gig in the 

104 



MONDAY. 105 

gray morning, in the mist, the impatient traveler pacing the 
wet shore with whip in hand, and shouting through the fog 
after the regardless Charon and his retreating ark, as if he 
might throw that passenger overboard and return forthwith 
for himself ; he will compensate him. He is to break his 
fast at some unseen place on the opposite side. It may be 
Ledyard or the Wandering Jew. Whence, pray, did he 
come out of the foggy night ? and whither through the 
sunny day will he go ? We observe only his transit ; im- 
portant to us, forgotten by him, transiting all day. There 
are two of them. Maybe they are Virgil and Dante. But 
when they crossed the Sty.x, none were seen bound up or 
down the stream, that I remember. It is only a transjecius, 
a transitory voyage, like life itself, none but the long-lived 
gods bound up or down the stream. Many of these Monday 
men are ministers, no doubt, reseeking their parishes with 
hired horses, with sermons in their valises all read and 
gutted ; the day after never with them. They cross each 
other's routes all the country over like woof and warp, 
making a garment of loose texture ; vacation now for six 
days. They stop to pick nuts and berries, and gather 
apples by the wayside at their leisure. Good religious 
men, with the love of men in their hearts, and the means to 
pay their toll in their pockets. We got over this ferry chain 
without scraping, rowing athwart the tide of travel, — no 
toll from us that day. 

The fog dispersed and we rowed leisurely along through 
Tyngsboro', with a clear sky and a mild atmosphere, leaving 
the habitations of men behind and penetrating yet further 
into the territory of ancient Dunstable. It was from Dun- 
stable, then a frontier town, that the famous Captain Love- 
well, with his company, marched in quest of the Indians on 
the i8th of April, 1725. He was the son of " an ensign in 
the army of Oliver Cromwell, who came to this country 
and settled at Dunstable, where he died at the great age of 



Io6 A WEEK, 

one hundred and twenty years." In the words of the old 
nursery tale, sung about a hundred years ago, — 

He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods full wide. 
And hardships they endured to quell the Indian's pride. 

In the shaggy pine forest of Pequawket they met the 
" rebel Indians," and prevailed after a bloody fight, and a 
remnant returned home to enjoy the fame of their victory. 
A township called Lovewell's Town, but now, for some 
reason, or perhaps without reason, Pembroke, was granted 
them by the State. 

Of all our valiant English, there were but thirty-four, 

And of the rebel Indians, there were about four score ; 

And sixteen of our English did safely home return, 

The rest were killed and wounded, for which we all must mourn. 

Our worthy Capt. Lovewell among them there did die. 
They killed Lieut. Robbins, and wounded good young Frye, 
Who was our English Chaplain ; he many Indians slew, 
And some of them he scalped while bullets round him flew. 

Our brave forefathers have exterminated all the Indians, 
and their degenerate children no longer dwell in garrisoned 
houses, nor hear any war-whoop in their path. It would 
be well, perchance, if many an " English Chaplain " in 
these days could exhibit as unquestionable trophies of his 
valor as did " good young Frye." We have need to be as 
sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish, or Church, or Love- 
well. We are to follow on another trail, it is true, but one 
as convenient for ambushes. What if the Indians are 
exterminated, are not savages as grim prowling about the 
clearings to-day ? 

And braving many dangers and hardships in the way. 

They safe arrived at Dunstable the thirteenth (?) day of May. 

But they did not all "safe arrive in Dunstable the thir- 
teenth," or the fifteenth, or the thirtieth " day of May." 



MONDAY. , 107 

Eleazer Davis and Josiah Jones, both of Concord, for our 
native town had seven men m this fight. Lieutenant Far- 
well, of Dunstable, and Jonathan Frye, of Andover, who 
were all wounded, were left behind, creeping toward the 
settlements. " After traveling several miles, Frye was left 
and lost," though a more recent poet has assigned him 
company in his last hours. 

A man he was of comely form, 

Polished and brave, well learned and kind ; 

Old Harvard's learned halls he left 
Far in the wilds a grave to find. 

Ah ! now his blood-red arm he lifts ; 

His closing lids he tries to raise ; 
And speak once more before he dies, 

In supplication and in praise. 

He prays kind Heaven to grant success, 
Brave Lovewell's men to guide and bless, 

And when they've shed their heart-blood true. 
To raise them all to happiness. 
****** 

Lieutenant Farwell took his hand, 

His arm around his neck he threw, 
And said, " brave Chaplain I could wish, 

That Heaven had made me die for you." 

Farwell held out eleven days. " A tradition says," as we 
learn from the History of Concord, " that arriving at a pond 
with Lieut. Farwell, Davis pulled off one of his moccasins, 
cut it in strings, on which he fastened a hook, caught some 
fish, fried and ate them. They refreshed him, but were in- 
jurious to Farwell, who died soon after." Davis had a ball 
lodged in his body, and his right hand shot off ; but on the 
whole, he seems to have been less damaged than his com- 
panion. He came into Berwick, after being out fourteen 
days. Jones also had a ball lodged in his body, but he 
likewise got into Saco after fourteen days, though not in 



Io8 A WEEK. 

the best condition imaginable. "lie had subsisted," says 
an old journal, " on the spontaneous vegetables of the 
forest ; and cranberries, which he had eatenj came out of 
wounds he had received in his body." This was also the 
case with Davis. The last two reached home at length, 
safe if not sound, and lived many years in a crippled state 
to enjoy their pension. 

But alas ! of the crippled Indians, and their adventures 
in the woods, — 

For as we are informed, so thick and fast they fell, 
Scarce twenty of their number at night did get home well, 

how many balls lodged with them, how it fared with their 
cranberries, what Berwick or Saco they got into, and finally 
what pension or township was granted them, there is no 
journal to tell. 

It is stated in the History of Dunstable, that just before 
his last march, Lovewell was warned to beware of the am- 
buscades of the enemy, but " he replied, ' that he did not 
care for them,' and bending down a small elm beside which 
he was standing into a bow, declared ' that he would treat 
the Indians in the same way.' This elm is still standing 
[in Nashua], a venerable and magnificent tree." 

Meanwhile, having passed the Horseshoe Interval in 
Tyngsboro', where the river makes a sudden bend to the 
northwest, — for our reflections have anticipated our progress 
somewhat, — we were advancing further into the country 
and into the day, which last proved almost as golden as the 
preceding, though the slight bustle and activity of the Mon- 
day seemed to penetrate even to this scenery. Now and 
then we had to muster all our energy to get round a point, 
where the river broke rippling over rocks, and the maples 
trailed their branches in the stream, but there was gener- 
ally a backwater or eddy on the side, of which we took ad- 



MONDAY. log 

vantage. The river was here about forty rods wide and 
fifteen feet deep. Occasionally one ran along the shore, 
examining the country and visiting the nearest farm-houses, 
while the other followed the windings of the stream alone, 
to meet his companion at some distant point, and hear the 
report of his adventures ; how the farmer praised the cool- 
ness of his well, and his wife offered the stranger a draught 
of milk, or the children quarreled for the only transparency 
in the window that they might get sight of the man at the 
well. For though the country seemed so new, and no 
house was observed by us, shut in between the high banks 
that sunny day, we did not have to travel far to find where 
men inhabited, like wild bees, and had sunk wells in the 
loose sand and loam of the Merrimac. There dwelt the 
subject of the Hebrew scriptures, and the Esprit des Lois, 
where a thin vaporous smoke curled up through the noon. 
All that is told of mankind, of the inhabitants of the Upper 
Nile, and the Sunderbunds, and Timbuctoo, and the Orin- 
oco, was experienced here. Every race and class of men was 
represented! According to Belknap, the historian of New 
Hampshire, who wrote sixty years ago, here too, perchance, 
dwelt " new lights," and free thinking men even then. 
" The people in general throughout the State," it is written, 
" are professors of the Christian religion in some form or 
other. There is, however, a sort of wise men, who pretend 
to reject it ; but they have not yet been able to substitute a 
better in its place." 

The other voyager, perhaps, would in the meanwhile 
have seen a brown hawk, or a woodchuck, or a musquash, 
creeping under the alders. 

We occasionally rested in the shade -of a maple or a willow 
and drew forth a melon for our refreshment, while we con- 
templated at our leisure the lapse of the river and of human 
life ; and as that current, with its floating twigs and leaves, 
so did all things pass in review before us, while far away in 



no A WEEK. 

cities and marts on this very stream, the old routine was 
proceeding still. There is, indeed, a tide in the affairs of men, 
as the poet says, and yet as things flow they circulate, and 
the ebb always balances the flow. All streams are but tribu- 
tary to the ocean, which itself does not stream, and the shores 
are unchanged but in longer periods than man can measure. 
Go where we will, we discover infinite change in particulars 
only, not in generals. When I go into a museum, and see 
the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that 
the times began to need reform as long ago as when they 
walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet 
men who declare that the time is near at hand for the re- 
demption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes so do 
they live in Dunstable to'-day. " Time drinketh up the 
essence of every great and noble action, which ought to be 
performed, and is delayed in the execution," so says Veesh- 
noo Sarma ; and we preceive that the schemers return again 
and again to common sense and labor. Such is the evidence 
of history. 

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, 

And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the Suns. 

There are secret articles in our treaties with the gods, of 
more importance than all the rest, which the historian can 
never know. 

There are many skillful apprentices, but few master work- 
men. On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in 
education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied 
wisdom of many an ancient philosopher. Who does not see 
that heresies have some time prevailed, that reforms have 
already taken place? All this worldly wisdom might be 
regarded as the once unamiable heresy of some wise man. 
Some interests have got a footing on the earth which we 
have not made sufiicient allowance for. Even they who 
first built these barns, and cleared the land thus, had some 



MONDAY. Ill 

valor. The abrupt epochs and chasms are smoothed down 
in history as the inequaHties of the plain are concealed by 
distance. But unless we do more than simply learn the 
trade of our time, we are but apprentices, and not yet mas- 
ters of the art of life. 

Now that we are casting away these melon seeds, how can 
we help feeling reproach ? He who eats the fruit, should at 
least plant the seed ; aye, if possible, a better seed than that 
whose fruit he has enjoyed. Seeds ! there are seeds enough 
which need only to be stirred in with the soil where they lie, 
by an inspired voice or pen, to bear fruit of a divine flavor. 
O thou spendthrift ! Defray thy debt to the world ; eat 
not the seed of institutions as the luxurious do, but plant it 
rather, while thou devourest the pulp and tuber for thy sub- 
sistence ; that so, perchance, one variety may at last be 
found worthy of preservation. 

There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are 
becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature. All 
laborers must have their nooning, and at this season of the 
day, we are all, more or less, Asiatics, and give over all 
work and reform. While lying thus on our oars by the 
side of the stream, in the heat of the day, our boat held by 
an osier put through the staple in its prow, and slicing the 
melons, which are a fruit of the East, our thoughts reverted 
to Arabia, Persia, and Hindostan, the lands of contempla- 
tion and dwelling places of the ruminant nations. In the 
experience of this noontide we could find some apology 
even for the instinct of the opium, betel, and tobacco 
chewers. Mount Saber, according to the French traveler 
and naturalist, Botta, is celebrated for producing the Kat 
tree, of which " the soft tops of the twigs and tender leaves 
are eaten," says his reviewer, " and produce an agreeable 
soothing excitement, restoring from fatigue, banishing sleep, 
and disposing to the enjoyment of conversation." We 
thought that we might lead a dignified Oriental life along 



112 A WEEK. 

this Stream as well, and the maple and alders would be our 
Kat trees. 

It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the rest- 
less class of Reformers. What if these grievances exist? 
So do you and 1. Think you that sitting hens are troubled 
with ennui these long summer days, sitting on and on in the 
crevice of a hay-loft, without active employment ? By the 
faint cackling in distant barns, I judge that Dame Nature is 
interested to know how many eggs her hens lay. The 
Universal Soul, as it is called, has an interest in the stacking 
of hay, the foddering of cattle, and the draining of peat 
meadows. Away in Scythia, away in India, it makes butter 
and cheese. Suppose that all farms are run out, and we 
youths must buy old land and bring it to, still everywhere 
the relentless opponents of reform bear a strange re- 
semblance to ourselves ; or perchance, they are a few old 
maids and bachelors, who sit round the kitchen hearth, and 
listen to the singing of the kettle. " The oracles often give 
victory to our choice, and not to the order alone of the 
mundane periods. As, for instance, when they say, that 
our voluntary sorrows germinate in us as the growth of the 
particular life we lead." The reform which you talk about 
can be undertaken any morning before unbarring our 
doors. We need not call any convention. When two 
neighbors begin to eat corn bread, who before ate wheat, 
then the gods smile from ear to ear, for it is very pleasant 
to them. Why do you not try it ? Don't let me hinder 
you. 

There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the 
world over, living on anticipation. Wolff, traveling in the 
deserts of Bokhara, says, " Another party of dervishes came 
to me and observed, ' The time will come when there shall 
be no difference between rich and poor, between high and 
low, when property will be in common, even wives and 
children.' " But, forever, I ask of such, What then ? The 



MONDAY. 113 

dervishes in the deserts of Bokhara and the reformers in 
Marlboro' Chapel sing the same song, " There's a good 
time coming, boys"; but, asked one of the audience in good 
faith, " Can you fix the date ? " Said I, " Will you help it 
along ? " 

The nonchalance and dolce-far-nicnte air of nature and 
society hint at infinite periods in the progress of mankind. 
'The States have leisure to laugh from Maine to Texas at 
some newspaper joke, and New England shakes at the 
double-cntendres of Australian circles, while the poor re- 
former cannot get a hearing. 

Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but 
for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference. What 
we need to know in any case is very simple. It is but too 
easy to establish another durable and harmonious routine. 
Immediately, all parts of nature consent to it. Only make 
something to take the place of something, and men will 
behave as if it were the very thing they wanted.' They must 
behave, at any rate, and will work up any material. There 
is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, 
which all combine to uphold. We should be slow to mend, 
my friends, as slow to require mending, "Not hurling, 
according to the oracle, a transcendent foot toward piety." 
The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. 
You must be calm before you can utter oracles. What was 
the excitement of the Delphic priestess compared with the 
calm wisdom of Socrates?— or whoever it was that was 
wise. Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity. 

Men find that action is another thing 

Than what they in discoursing papers read ; 

The world's affairs require in managing 

More arts than those wherein you clerks proceed. 

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the 
causes of all past change in the present invariable order of 



114 A WEEK. 

society. The greatest appreciable physical revolutions are 
the work of the light-footed air, the stealthy-paced water, and 
the subterranean fire. Aristotle said, " As time never fails, 
and the universe is eternal, neither the Tanais nor the Nile 
can have flowed forever." We are independent of the 
change we detect. The longer the lever the less perceptible 
its motion. It is the slowest pulsation which is the most 
vital. The hero, then, will know how to wait, as well as to 
make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely ; 
we shall sooner overtake the dawn by remaining here than 
by hurrying over the hills of the west. Be assured that 
every man's success is in proportion to his average ability. 
The meadow flowers spring and bloom where the waters 
annually deposit their slime, not where they reach in some 
freshet only. A man is not his hope, nor his despair, nor 
yet his past deed. We know not yet what we have done, 
still less what we are doing. Wait till evening, and other 
parts of our day's work will shine than we had thought at 
noon, and we shall discover the real purport of our toil. As 
when the farmer has reached the end of the furrow and 
looks back, he can best tell where the pressed earth shines 
most. 

To one who habitually endeavors to contemplate the true 
state of things, the political state can hardly be said to 
have any existence whatever. It is unreal, incredible, and 
insignificant to him, and for him to endeavor to extract the 
truth from such lean material is like making sugar from 
linen rags, when sugar cane may be had. Generally speak- 
ing, the political news, whether domestic or foreign, might 
be written to-day for the next ten years, with sufficient 
accuracy. Most revolutions in society have not power to 
interest, still less alarm us ; but tell me that our rivers are 
drying up, or the genus pine dying out in the country, and 
I might attend. Most events recorded in history are more 



MONDAY. 115 

remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and 
moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one 
takes the tremble to calculate. But will the government 
never be so well admmisterecJ, inquired one, that we private 
men shall hear nothing about it? "The king answered : 
'At all events, I require a prudent and able man, who is 
capable of managing the state affairs of my kingdom.' The 
ex-minister said, 'The criterion, O Sire ! of a wise and com- 
petent man, is, that he will not meddle with such like 
matters.'" Alas, that the ex-minister should have been so 
nearly right. 

In my short experience of human life, the outward ob- 
stacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, 
but the institutions of the dead. It is grateful to make 
one's own way through this latest generation as through 
dewy grass. Men are as innocent as the morning to the 
unsuspicious. 

And round about good morrows fly, 
As if day taught humanity. 

Not being Reve of this Shire, 

The early pilgrim blithe he hailed, 

That o'er the hills did stray. 
And many an early husbandman, 

That he met on his way ; 

thieves and robbers all, nevertheless. I have not so surely 
foreseen that any Cossack or Chippeway would come to dis- 
turb the honest and simple commonwealth, as that some 
monster institution would at length embrace and crush its 
free members in its scaly folds ; for it is not to be forgotten, 
that while the law holds fast the thief and murderer, it lets 
itself go loose. When I have not paid the tax which the 
State demanded for that protection which I did not want, 
itself has robbed me ; when I have asserted the liberty it 
presumed to declare, itself has imprisoned me. Poor 



Il6 A WEEK. 

creature ! if it knows no better I will not blame it. If it 
cannot live but by these means, I can. I do not wish, it 
happens, to be associated with Massachusetts, either in hold- 
ing slaves or in conquering Mexico. I am a little better 
than herself in these respects. As for Massachusetts, that 
huge she Briareus, Argus, and Colchian Dragon conjoined, 
set to watch the Heifer of the Constitution and the Golden 
Fleece, we would not warrant our respect for her, like some 
compositions, to preserve its qualities through all weathers. 
Thus it has happened, that not the Arch Fiend himself 
has been in my way, but these toils which tradition says 
was originally spun to obstruct him. They are cobwebs 
and trifling obstacles in an earnest man's path, it is true, 
and at length one even becomes attached to his unswept 
and undusted garret. I love man — kind, but I hate the in- 
stitutions of the dead unkind. Men execute nothing so 
faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the last codicil and 
letter. They rule this world, and the living are but their 
executors. Such foundation, too, have our lectures and our 
sermons commonly. They are all Dudleian ; and piety de- 
rives its origin still from that exploit of pius Aineas, who 
bore his father, Anchises, on his shoulders from the ruins of 
Troy. Or rather, like some Indian tribes, we bear about 
with us the moldering relics of our ancestors on our 
shoulders. If, for instance, a man asserts the value of in- 
dividual liberty over the merely political commonweal, his 
neighbor still tolerates him, that is he who is living near 
him, sometimes even sustains him, but never the State. 
Its officer, as a living man, may have human virtues and a 
thought in his brain, but as the tool of an institution, a 
jailor or constable it may be, he is not a whit superior to his 
prison key or his staff. Herein is the tragedy ; that men 
doing outrage to their proper natures, even those called 
wise and good, lend themselves to perform the office of 
inferior and brutal ones. Hence come war and slavery in ; 



MONDAY. 117 

and what else may not come in by this opening ? But 
certainly there are modes by which a man may put bread 
into his mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion 
and neighbor. 

Now turn again, turn again, said the pinder, 

For a wrong way you have gone, 
For you have forsaken the king's highway, 
And made a path over the corn. 

Undoubtedly, countless reforms are called for, because 
society is not animated, or instinct enough with life, but in 
the condition of some snakes which I have seen in early 
spring, with alternate portions of their bodies torpid and 
lexible, so that they could wriggle neither way. All men 
a'-e partially buried in the grave of custom, and of some we 
see only the crown of the head above ground. Better are 
the physically dead, for they more lively rot. Even virtue 
is no longer such if it be stagnant. A man's life should be 
constantly as fresh as this river. It should be the same 
channel, but a new water every instant. 

Virtues as rivers pass, — 
But still remains that virtuous man there was. 

Most men have no inclination, no rapids, no cascades, but 
marshes, and alligators, and miasma instead. We read 
th2.t when in the expedition of Alexander, Onesicritus was 
sent forward to meet certain of the Indian sect of Gym- 
nosophists, and he had told them of those new philosophers 
of the west, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Diogenes, and their 
doctrines, one of them named Dandamis answered, that 
" They appeared to him to have been men of genius, but to 
have lived with too passive a regard for the laws." The 
philosophers of the west are liable to this rebuke still. 
" They say that Lieou-hia-hoei and Chao-lien did not 
sustain to the end their resolutions, and that they dis- 
honored their character. Their language was in harmony 



Il8 A WEEK. 

with reason and justice ; while their acts were in liarmony 
with the sentiments of men." 

Chateaubriand said, " 'I'here are two things which grow 
stronger in the breast of man, in proportion as he advances 
in years ; the love of country and religion. Let them be 
never so much forgotten in youth, they sooner or later 
present themselves to us arrayed in all their charms, and 
excite in the recesses of our hearts, an attachment justly 
due to their beauty." It may be so. But even this 
infirmity (A noljle minds marks the gradual decay of 
youthful hf)[ie and faith. It is the allowed infidelity of age. 
There is a saying of the Yoloffs, " He who was born first 
has the greatest number of old clothes," consequently M. 
Chateaubriand has more f)ld clothes than I have. It 'n 
comparatively a faint and reflected beauty that is admiral, 
not an essential and intrinsic one. It is because the old 
are weak, feel their mortality, and think that they have 
measured the strength of man. They will not boast ; they 
will be frank and humble. Well, let them have the few 
pf)or comforts they can keep. Humility is still a very 
human virtue. They look back on life, and so see not into 
the future. The prospect of the young is forward and un- 
bounded, mingling the future with the present. In the 
declining day the thoughts make haste to rest in darkness, 
and hardly look forward to the ensuing morning. 'Hie 
thoughts of the old prepare for night and shtmber. The 
same hopes and prospects are not for him wlio stands upon 
the rosy mountain-tops of life, and him who expects the 
setting of his earthly day. 

I must conclude that conscience, if that be the name of it, 
was not given us for no purpose, or for a hindrance. How- 
ever flattering order and experience may look, it is but the 
repose of a lethargy, and we will choose rather to be 
awake, though it be stormy, and maintain ourselves on this 
earth and in this life, as we may, without signing our death 



MoNDAV. 119 

Warr.inl. I,ct. lis sec li we ciiuiol st;iy here \v!icic lie lias 
|)iil us, oil his own (omiilioiis. I)()cs not his law reach as 
far as /lis li^^hl ? The cxiM-diciiis of llu; iialioiis clash vvilh 
one uiiolliL-r, only llu; al>s(»liilcly ri;;liL is tixpcrdiciit for all. 

'I'licrc arc soiiu; [)assaj^es in I he ,\nli;;oiic of Sophocles, 
well known to scliolars, of which I am rciiiiiidcd in this con- 
ncction. Anlii^oiic has resolved to sprinkle saiul oil the 
di'ad body of her hiolln^r, Tolynices, notwithslandiiijjf the 
edict of \\\w^ Creoii coiideiniiinjj to death that one who 
should perform this service, which the (ireeks ileeined so 
important, for the enemy of his country ; but Isnienc, who 
is of a less resolute and noble spirit, declines takiii); part 
with her sister in this work, and says : 

" r, tlKTi'forc. askin^j llios<' iiiKJcr llic carlli lo coiisidrr me, that I am 
aompellcd lo ijo lliiis, will oiu-y liiosc wiio arc placcil in oIIk c ; for lo do 
exlrciiic tliiiij^s is not wise." 

ANTKiONK. 

" I would iiol ;i',l< yf)ii, nor would you, if yon still wislic(|, do it joy- 
fully willi nic. I'll- snrli ,-is M-crns iM)i)i! lo you. Hut I will hniy liiin. It 
is Klorioui for \nc doin;; ihis lo die I iKdovcd will lie will) liiiii hdovcd, 
li.'ivin};, like a critiiin.d, ilnnr. wliai is lioly ; niiicc tlic time is loii({cr wliieh 
it is nccess.'iry for iiu; to please those l)clow. than tliOHe lieic, for there I 
shall always lii;. Hut if it seems ^;ood to you, hold in dishonor ihint^H 
wiiich are lioimred by the fJoiU." 

ISMKNK. 

" I indeed do not hold them in dishonor ; hut to .act in oi)()0'.ition to 
iIk! eili/.cns ! am by nature unahle." 

Antigone being at leii^ith brcnight tlef(jre King ("reoii, he 

asks : 

" hid yon Ihcn dare to trans;,'ress tlicsfi laws ? " 

ANIICONK. 

" I''or it w;is not /ms who piorlaini'-d th(;sc to me, nor Justice wlu) 
dwells with the j^ods below, it w.is not they who eslablished these l.iws 
amoii^ men. Nor did I think that your proclam.ilionH were so strong, 
as, beinj; a nvjrtal, lo be ai)le to transciiid the unwritten and immov;d)l<r 
laws of the godn. For not something now and yesterday, but forever 



I20 A WEEK. 

these live, and no one knows from what time they appeared. I was not 
about to pay the penalty of violating these to the gods, fearing the pre- 
sumption of any man. For I well knew that I should die, and why not ? 
even if you had not proclaimed it." 

This was concerning the burial of a dead body. 

The wisest conservatism is that of the Hindoos. " Im- 
memorial custom is transcendent law," says Menu. That is, 
it was the custom of the gods before men used it. The 
fault of our New England custom is that it is memorial. 
What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience 
is the chief of conservatives. " Perform the settled func- 
tions," says Kreeshna in the Bhagvat-Geeta, " action is pre- 
ferable to inaction. The journey of thy mortal frame may 
not succeed from inaction." " A man's own calling, with all 
its faults, ought not to be forsaken. Every undertaking is 
involved in its faults as the fire in its smoke." "The man 
who is acquainted with the whole, should not drive those 
from their works who are slow of comprehension, and less 
experienced than himself." " Wherefore, O Arjoon, resolve 
to fight," is the advice of the God to the irresolute soldier 
who fears to slay his best friends. It is a sublime conserva- 
tism ; as wide as the world, and as unwearied as time ; pre- 
serving the universe with Asiatic anxiety, in that state in 
which it appeared to their minds. These philosophers dwell 
on the inevitability and unchangeableness of laws, on the 
power of temperament and "constitution, the three goon or 
qualities, and the circumstances of birth and affinity. The 
end is an immense consolation ; eternal absorption in Brah- 
ma. Their speculations never venture beyond their own 
table lands, though they are high and vast as they. Buoy- 
ancy, freedom, flexibility, variety, possibility, which also are 
qualities of the Unnamed, they deal not with. The unde- 
served reward is to be earned by an everlasting moral 
drudgery ; incalculable promise of the morrow is, as it were. 



MONDAY. 121 

weighed. And who will say that their conservatism has not 
been effectual. "Assuredly," says a Frencii translator, 
speaking of the antiquity and durability of the Cliinese and 
Indian nations, and of the wisdom of their legislators, " there 
are there some vestiges of the eternal laws which govern the 
world." 

Christianity, on the other hand, is humane, practical, and, 
in a large sense, radical. So many years and ages of the 
gods those Eastern sages sat contemplating Brahm, uttering 
in silence the mystic " Om," being absorbed into the es- 
sence of the Supreme Being, never going out of themselves, 
but subsiding further and deeper within ; so infinitely wise, 
yet infinitely stagnant ; until, at last, in that same Asia, but 
in the western part of it, appeared a youth, wholly unfore- 
told by them, — not being absorbed into Brahm, but bring- 
ing Brahm down to earth and to mankind ; in whom 
Brahm had awaked from his long sleep, and exerted him- 
self, and day began, — a new avatar. The Brahman 
had never thought to be a brother of mankind as well as 
a child of God. Christ is the prince of Reformers and 
Radicals. Many expressions in the New Testament come 
naturally to the lips of all Protestants, and it furnishes the 
most pregnant and practical texts. There is no harmless 
dreaming, no wise speculation in it, but everywhere a sub- 
stratum of good sense. It never reflects, but It repoits. 
There is no poetry in it, we may say, nothing regarded in 
the light of pure beauty, but maral truth is its object. AH 
mortals are convicted by its conscience. 

The New Testament is remarkable for its pure morality ; 
the best of the Hindoo Scripture, for its pure intellectual- 
ity. The reader is nowhere raised into and sustained in a 
higher, purer, or rarer region of thought than in the Bhag- 
vat-Geeta. Warren Hastings, in his sensible letter recom- 
mending the translation of this book to the Chairman of the 
East India Company, declares the original to be " of a 



122 A WEEK, 

sublimity of conception, reasoning and diction, almost uil- 
equaled," and that the writings of the Indian philosophers 
" will survive when the British dominion in India shall have 
long ceased to exist, and when the sources which it once 
yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance." 
It is unquestionably one of the noblest and most sacred 
scriptures that have come down to us. Books are to be 
distinguished by the grandeur of their topics, even more 
than by the manner in which they are treated. The Oriental 
philosophy approaches, easily, loftier themes than the mod- 
ern aspires to ; and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about 
them. // only assigns their due rank respectively to Action 
and Contemplation, or rather does full justice to the latter. 
Western philosophers have not conceived of the signifi- 
cance of contemplation in their sense. Speaking of the 
spiritual discipline to which the Brahmans subjected them- 
selves, and the wonderful power of abstraction to which 
they attained, instances of which had come under his 
notice, Hastings says : 

To those who have never been accustomed to the separation of the 
mind from the notices of the senses, it may not be easy to conceive by 
what means such a power is to be attained ; since even the most studious 
men of our hemisphere will find it difficult so as to restrain their atten- 
tion, but that it will wander to some object of present sense or recollec- 
tion ; and even the buzzing of a fly will sometimes have the power to dis- 
turb it. But if we are told that there have been men who were successively, 
for ages past, in the daily habit of abstracted contemplation, begun in 
the earliest period of youth, and continued in many to the maturity of 
age, each adding some portion of' knowledge to the store accumulated by 
his predecessors ; it is not assuming too much to conclude, that as the 
mind ever gathers strength, like the body, by exercise, so in such an exer- 
cise it may in each have acquired the faculty to which they aspired, and 
that their collective studies may have led them to the discovery of new 
tracks and combinations of sentiment, totally different from the doctrines 
with which the learned of other nations are acquainted ; which doctrines, 
however speculative and subtle, still, as they possess the advantage of 
being derived from a source so free from every adventitious mixture, may 
be equally founded in truth with the most simple of our own. 



MONDAY. 123 

" The forsaking of works " was taught by Kreeshna to 
the most ancient of men, and handed down from one to 
another, 

"until at length, in the course of time, the mighty art was lost. 

" In wisdom is to be found every work without exception," says 
Kreeshna. 

" Although thou wert the greatest of all offenders, thou shalt be able to 
cross the gulf of sin with the bark of wisdom." 

" There is not anything in this world to be compared with wisdom for 

purity." 

" The action stands at a distance inferior to the application of wis- 
dom." 

The wisdom of a Moonee "is confirmed, when, like the tortoise, 
he can draw in all his members, and restrain them from their wonted 
purposes." 

" Children only, and not the learned, speak of the speculative and the 
practical doctrines as two. They are but one. For both obtain the self- 
same end, and the place which is gained by the followers of the one, is 
gained by the followers of the other." 

" The man enjoyeth not freedom from action, from the non-commence- 
ment of that which he hath to do ; nor doth he obtain happiness from a 
total inactivity. No one ever resteth a moment inactive. Every man is 
involuntarily urged to act by those principles which are inherent in his 
nature. The man who restraineth his active faculties, and sitteth down 
with his mind attentive to the object of his senses, is called one of an 
astrayed soul, and the practicer of deceit. So the man is praised, who, 
having subdued all his passions, performeth with his active faculties all 
the functions of life, unconcerned about the event." 

" Let the motive be in the deed and not in the event. Be not one 
whose motive for action is the hope of reward. Let not thy life be 
spent in inaction." 

" For the man who doeth that which he hath to do, without affection, 
obtaineth the Supreme." 

" He who may behold, as it were inaction in action, and action in inac- 
tion, is wise amongst mankind. He is a perfect performer of all duty." 

" Wise men call him a Paudeet, whose every undertaking is free from 
the idea of desire, and whose actions are consumed by the fire of wisdom. 
He abandoneth the desire of a reward of his actions ; he is always con- 
tented and independent ; and although he may be engaged in a work, he, 
as it were, doeth nothing." 



124 A WEEK. 

" He is both a Yogee and a Sannyasee who performeth that which he 
hath to do independent of the fruit tliereof ; not he who Hveth without 
the sacrificial fire and without action." 

" He who enjoyeth but the Amreeta which is left of his offerings, ob- 
taineth the eternal spirit of Brahm, the Supreme.' 

What after all does the practicalness of life amount to ? 
The things immediate to be done are very trivial. I could 
postpone them all to hear this locust sing. The most glori- 
ous fact in our experience is not anything that we have 
done or may hope to do, but a transient thought, or vision, 
or dream, which we have had. I would give all the wealth 
of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true 
vision. But how can I communicate with the gods who am 
a pencil-maker on the earth, and not be insane ? 

" I am the same to all mankind ; " says Kreeshna, " there is not one 
who is worthy of my love or hatred." 

This teaching is not practical in the sense in which the 
New Testament is. It is not always sound sense in prac- 
tice. The Brahman never proposes courageously to assault 
evil, but patiently to starve it out. His acitive faculties are 
paralyzed by the i^ea of caste of impassalile limits, of des- 
tiny and the tyranny of time. Kreeshna's argument, it 
must be allowed, is defective. No sufficient reason is given 
why Arjoon should fight. Arjoon may be convinced, but 
the reader is not, for-his judgment is not " formed upon the 
speculative doctrines of the Sankhya Sastra." " Seek an 
asylum in wisdom alone," — but what is wisdom to a Western 
mind ? He speaks of duty, but the duty of which he speaks 
is it not an arbitrary one ? When was it established ? The 
Brahman's virtue consists not in doing right, but arbitrary 
thmgs. What is that which a man " hath to do " ? What is 
"action"? What are the " settled functions " ? What is " a 
man's own religion," which is so much better than another's ? 
What is "a man's own particular calling" ? What are the 
duties wliich are appointed by one's birth ? It is in fact a 



MONDAY. 125 

defense of the institution of caste, of what is called the 
" natural duty " of the Kshetree, or soldier, " to attach him- 
self to the discipline," " not to flee from the field," and the 
like. But they who are unconcerned about the conse- 
quences of their actions, are not therefore unconcerned 
about their actions. Yet we know not where we should 
look for a loftier speculative faith. 

Behold the difference between the Oriental and the Occi- 
dental. The former has nothing to do in this world ; the 
latter is full of activity. The one looks in the sun till 
his eyes are put out ; the other follows him prone in his 
westward course. There is such a thing as caste, even in 
the West ; but it is comparatively faint. It is conservatism 
here. It says forsake not your calling, outrage no institu- 
tion, use no violence, rend no bonds. The State is thy 
parent. Its virtue or manhood is wholly filial. There is a 
struggle between the Oriental and Occidental in every nation; 
some who would be forever contemplating the sun, and some 
who are hastening toward the sunset. The former class 
says to the latter, "When you have reached the sunset, you 
will be no nearer to the sun." To which the latter replies, 
" But we so prolong the day." The former " walketh but in 
that night, when all things go to rest, the night of time. 
The contemplative Moonee sleepeth but in the day of time, 
when all things wake." 

To conclude these extracts, I can say, in the words of 
Sanjay, "As, O mighty Prince! I recollect again and 
again this holy and wonderful dialogue of Kreeshna and 
Arjoon, I continue more and more to rejoice ; and as I 
recall to my memory the more than miraculous form of 
Haree, my astonishment is great, and I marvel and rejoice 
again and again ! Wherever Kreeshna the God of devotion 
may be, wherever Arjoon the mighty bowman may be, 
there too, without doubt, are fortune, riches, victory, and 
good conduct. This is my firm belief." 



126 A WEEK. 

I would say to the readers of Scriptures, if they wish for 
a good book to read, read the Bhagvat-Geeta, an episode 
to the Mahabharat, said to have been written by Kreeshna 

Dwypayen Veias, — known to have been written by , 

more than four thousand years ago, — it matters not 
whether three or four, or when, — translated by Charles 
Wilkins. It deserves to be read with reverence even by 
Yankees, as a part of the sacred writings of a devout 
people ; and the intelligent Hebrew will rejoice to find in 
it a moral grandeur and sublimity akin to those of his own 
Scriptures. 

To an American reader, who, by the advantage of his 
position, can see over that strip of Atlantic coast to Asia 
and the Pacific, who, as it were, sees the shore slope 
upward over the Alps to the Himalaya Mountains, the 
comparatively recent literature of Europe often appears 
partial and clannish, and, notwithstanding the limited range 
of his own sympathies and studies, the European writer 
who presumes that he is speaking for the world, is perceived 
by him to speak only for that corner of it which he in- 
habits. One of the rarest of England's scholars and critics, 
in his classification of the worthies of the world, betrays the 
narrowness of his European culture and the exclusiveness 
of his reading. None of her children has done justice to 
the poets and philosophers of Persia or of India. They 
have been better known to her merchant scholars than to 
her poets and thinkers by profession. You may look in 
vain through English poetry for a single memorable verse 
inspired by these themes. Nor is Germany to be excepted, 
though her philological industry is indirectly serving the 
cause of philosophy and poetry. Even Goethe, one would 
say, wanted that universality of genius which could have 
appreciated the philosophy of India, if he had more nearly 
approached it. His genius was more practical, dwelling 
much more in the regions of the understanding, and less 



MONDAY. 127 

native to contemplation than the genius of those sages. It 
is remarkable that Homer and a few Hebrews are the most 
Oriental names which modern Europe, whose literature has 
taken its rise since the decline of the Persian, has admitted 
into her list of worthies, and perhaps the ivorthiest of man- 
kind, and the fathers of modern thinking, — for the con- 
templations of those Indian sages have influenced the 
intellectual development of mankind, — whose works even 
yet survive in wonderful completeness, are, for the most 
part, not recognized as ever having existed. If the lions 
had been the painters it would have been otherwise. In 
every one's youthful dreams philosophy is still vague but 
inseparably, and with singular truth, associated with the 
East, nor do after years discover its local habitation in the 
Western world. In comparison with the philosophers of 
the East, we may say that modern Europe has yet given 
birth to none. Beside the vast and cosmogonal philosophy 
of the Bhagvat-Geeta, even our Shakespeare seems some- 
times youthfully green and practical merely. Some of these 
sublime sentences, as the Chaldaean oracles of Zoroaster, 
for instance, still surviving after a thousand revolutions 
and translations, make us doubt if the poetic form and 
dress are not transitory, and not essential to the most effec- 
tive and enduring expression of thought. Ex oriente lux 
may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world 
has not yet derived from the East all the light which it is 
destined to receive thence. 

It would be worthy of the age to print together the col- 
lected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, 
the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and 
others, as the Scripture of mankind. The New Testanient 
is still, perhaps, too much on the lips and in the hearts of 
men to be called a Scripture in this sense. Such a juxta- 
position and comparison might help to liberalize the faith 
of men. This is a work which Time will surely edit, 



128 A WEEK. 

reserved to crown the labors of the pruiting press. This 
would be the Bible, or Book of Books, which let the mis- 
sionaries carry to the uttermost parts of the earth. 

While engaged in these reflections, thinking ourselves the 
only navigators of these waters, suddenly a canal-boat, with 
its sail set, glided round a point before us, like some huge 
river beast, and changed the scene in an instant ; and then 
another and another glided into sight, and we found our- 
selves in the current of commerce once more. So we threw 
our rinds into the water for the fishes to nibble, and added 
our breath to the life of living men. Little did we think in 
the distant garden in which we had planted the seed and 
reared this fruit, where it would be eaten. Our melons lay 
at home on the sandy bottom of the Merrimac, and our 
potatoes in the sun and water at the bottom of the boat 
looked like a fruit of the country. Soon, however, we were 
delivered from this fleet of junks, and possessed the river 
in solitude, rowing steadily upward through the noon, 
between the territories of Nashua on the one hand, and 
Hudson, once Nottingham, on the other ; from time to time 
scaring up a king-fisher or a summer duck, the former fly- 
ing rather by vigorous impulses, than by steady and patient 
steering with that short rudder of his, sounding his rattle 
along the fluvial street. 

Ere long another scow hove in sight, creeping down the 
river, and hailing it, we attached ourselves to its side, and 
floated back in company, chatting with the boatmen, and 
obtaining a draught of cooler water from their jug. They 
appeared to be green hands from far among the hills, who 
had taken this means to get to the seaboard, and see the 
world ; and would possibly visit the Falkland Isles, and the 
China seas, before they again saw the waters of the Merri- 
mac, or, perchance, not return this way forever. They had 
already embarked the private interests of the landsman in 



MONDAY. r29 

the larger venture of the race, and were ready to mess with 
mankind, reserving only the till of a chest to themselves. 
But they too were soon lost behind a point, and we went 
croaking on our way alone. What grievance has its root 
among the New Hampshire hills? we asked. What is want- 
ing to human life here, that these men should make such 
haste to the antipodes ? We prayed that their bright antici- 
pations might not be rudely disappointed. 

Though all the fates should prove unkind, 
Leave not your native land behind. 
The ship, becalmed, at length stands still ; 
The steed must rest beneath the hill ; 
But swiftly still our fortunes pace, 
To find us out in every place. 

The vessel, though her masts be firm, 

Beneath her copper bears a worm ; 

Around the cape, across the line. 

Till fields of ice her course confine ; 

It matters not how smooth the breeze, 

How shallow or how deep the seas, 

Whether she bears Manilla twine. 

Or in her hold Madeira wine, 

Or China teas or Spanish hides, 

In port or quarantine she rides ; 

Far from New England's blustering shore. 

New England's worm her hulk shall bore. 

And sink her in the Indian seas, 

Twine, wine, and hides, and China teas. 

We passed a small desert here on the east bank, between 
Tyngsboro' and Hudson, which was interesting and even 
refreshing to our eyes in the midst of the almost universal 
greenness. This sand was indeed somewhat impressive and 
beautiful to us. A very old inhabitant, who was at work in 
a field on the Nashua side, told us that he remembered when 
corn and grain grew there, and it was a cultivated field. 
But at length the fishermen, for this was a fishing place, 



130 A WEEK. 

pulled up tlie bushes on the shore, for greater convenience 
in hauling their seines, and when the bank was thus broken, 
the wind began to blow up the sand from the shore, until at 
length it had covered about fifteen acres several feet deep. 
We saw near the river, where the sand was blown off down 
to some ancient surface, the foundation of an Indian wig- 
wam exposed, a perfect circle of burnt stones, four or five 
feet in diameter, mingled with fine charcoal and the bones 
of small animals, which had been preserved in the sand. 
The surrounding sand was sprinkled with other burnt stones 
on which their fires had been built, as well as with flakes of 
arrow-head stone, and we found one perfect arrow-head. 
In one place we noticed where an Indian had sat to manu- 
facture arrow-heads out of quartz, and the sand was sprin- 
kled with a quart of small glass-like chips about as big as a 
fourpence, which he had broken off in his work. Here, 
then, the Indians must have fished before the whites ar- 
rived. There was another similar sandy tract about half a 
mile above this. 

Still the noon prevailed, and we turned the prow aside to 
bathe, and recline ourselves under some buttonwoods by a 
ledge of rocks, in a retired pasture, sloping to the water's 
edge, and .skirted with pines and hazels, in the town of Hud- 
son. Still had India, and that old noontide philosophy, the 
better part of our thoughts. 

It is always singular, but encouraging, to meet with com- 
mon sense in very old books, as the Heetopades of Veesh- 
noo Sarma ; a playful wisdom which has eyes behind as well 
as before, and oversees itself. It asserts their health and 
independence of the experience of later times. This pledge 
of sanity cannot be spared in a book, that it sometimes 
pleasantly reflect upon itself. The story and fabulous por- 
tion of this book winds loosely from sentence to sentence as 
so many oases in a desert, and is as indistinct as a camel's 



MONDAY. 131 

track between Mourzouk and Darfour. It is a comment on 
the flow and freshet of modern books. The reader leaps 
from sentence to sentence, as from one stepping stone to 
another, while the stream of the story rushes past unre- 
garded. The Bhagvat-Geeta is less sententious and poetic, 
perhaps, but still more wonderfully sustained and developed. 
Its sanity and sublimity have impressed the minds even of 
soldiers and merchants. It is the characteristic of great 
poems that they will yield of their sense in due proportion 
to the hasty and deliberate reader. To the practical they 
will be common sense, and to the wise wisdom ; as either 
the traveler may wet his lips, or an army may fill its water 
casks at a full stream. 

One of the most attractive of those ancient books that I 
have met with is the Laws of Menu. According to Sir 
William Jones, " Vyasa, the son of Parasara, has decided 
that the Veda, with its Angas, or the six compositions de- 
duced from it, the revealed system of medicine, the Pur- 
anas, or sacred histories, and the Code of Menu, were the 
four works of supreme authority, which ought never to be 
shaken by arguments merely human." The last is believed 
by the Hindoos " to have been promulged in the beginning 
of time, by Menu, son or grandson of Brahma," and " first 
of created beings " ; and Brahma is said to have " taught 
his laws to Menu in a hundred thousand verses, which 
Menu explained to the primitive world in the very words of 
the book now translated." Others affirm that they have 
undergone successive abridgements for the convenience of 
mortals, " while the gods of the lower heaven, and the band 
of celestial musicians, are engaged in studying the primary 
code." " A number of glosses or comments on Ivlenu were 
composed by the Munis, or old philosophers, whose treat- 
ises, together with that before us, constitute the Dherma 
Sastra, in a collective sense, or Body of Law." Culluca 
Bhatta was one of the more modern of these. 



132 A WEEK. 

Every sacred book, successively, seems to have been ac- 
cepted in the faith that it was to be the final resting-place 
of the sojourning soul ; but after all, it is but a caravansary 
which supplies refreshment to the traveler, and directs him 
farther on his way to Ispahan or Bagdat. Thank God, no 
Hindoo tyranny prevailed at the framing of the world, but 
we are freemen of the universe, and not sentenced to any 
caste. 

I know of no book which has come down to us with 
grander pretensions than this, and it is so impersonal and 
sincere that it is never offensive or ridiculous. Compare the 
modes in which modern literature is advertised with the 
prospectus of this book, and think what a reading public 
it addresses, what criticism it expects. It seems to have 
been uttered from some Eastern summit, with a sober morn- 
ing prescience in the dawn of time, and you cannot read a 
sentence without being elevated as upon the tableland of 
the Ghauts. It has such a rhythm as the winds of the desert, 
such a tide as the Ganges, and is as superior to criticism as 
the Himalaya mountains. Its tone is of such unrelaxed 
fiber, that even at this late day, unworn by time, it wears 
the English and the Sanscrit dress indifferently, and its 
fixed sentences keep up their distant fires still like the stars, 
by whose dissipated rays this lower woiid is illumined. 
The whole book by noble gestures and inclinations seems 
to render many words unnecessary. English sense has 
toiled, but Hindoo wisdom never perspired. The sentences 
open as we read them, unexpensively, and, at first, almost 
unmeaningly, as the petals of a flower, yet they sometimes 
startle us with that rare kind of wisdom which could only 
have been learned from the most trivial experience ; but it 
comes to us as refined as the porcelain earth which subsides 
to the bottom of the ocean. They are clean and dry as 
fossil truths, which have been exposed to the elements for 
thousands of years, so impersonally and scientifically true 



MONDAY. 133 

that they are the ornament of the parlor and the cabinet. 
Any moral philosophy is exceedingly rare. This of Menu 
addresses our privacy more than most. It is a more pri- 
vate and familiar, and, at the same time, a more public and 
universal word than is spoken in parlor or pulpit nowadays. 
As our domestic fowls are said to have their origin in the 
wild pheasant of India, so our domestic thoughts have their 
prototypes in the thoughts of her philosophers. AVe seem 
to be dabbling in the very elements of our present conven- 
tional and actual life ; as if it were the primeval conven- 
ticle where how to eat and to drink and to sleep, and 
maintain life with adequate dignity and sincerity, were the 
questions to be decided. It is later and more intimate even 
than the advice of our nearest friends. And yet it is true 
for the widest horizon, and read out of doors has relation 
to the dim mountain line, and is native and aboriginal there. 
Most books belong to the house and street only, and in the 
fields their leaves feel very thin. They are bare and ob- 
vious, and have no halo nor haze about them. Nature lies 
far and fair behind them all. But this, as it proceeds from, 
so does it address what is deepest and most abiding in man. 
It belongs to the noontide of the day, the midsummer of 
the year, and after the snows have melted, and the waters 
evaporated in the spring, still its truths speak freshly to our 
experience. It helps the sun to shine, and its rays fall on 
its page to illustrate it. It spends the mornings and the 
evenings, and makes such an impression on us over night 
as to awaken us before dawn, and its influence lingers 
around us like a fragrance late into the day. It conveys a 
new gloss to the meadows and the depths of the wood. Its 
spirit, like a more subtle ether, sweeps along with the pre- 
vailing winds of a country, and the very locusts and crick- 
ets of a summer day are but later or earlier glosses on the 
Dherm^ Sastra of the Hindoos, a continuation of the sacred 
code. As we have said, there is an Orientalism in the most 



134 A WEEK. 

restless pioneer, and the farthest west is but the farthest 
east. This fair modern world is only a reprint of the Laws 
of Menu with, the gloss of Culluca. Tried by a New Eng- 
land eye, or the mere practical wisdom of modern times, 
they are the oracles of a race already in its dotage, but held 
up to the sky, which is the only impartial and incorruptible 
ordeal, they are of a piece with its depth and serenity, and 
I am assured that they will have a place and significance as 
long as there is a sky to test them by. 

Give me a sentence which no intelligence can understand. 
There must be a kind of life and palpitation to it, and under 
its words a kind of blood must circulate forever. It is 
wonderful that this sound should have come down to us 
from so far, when the voice of man can be heard so little 
way, and we are not now within earshot of any contempor- 
ary. The woodcutters have here felled an ancient pine 
forest, and brought to light to these distant hills a fair lake 
in the southwest ; and now in an instant it is distinctly 
shown to these woods as if its image had traveled hither 
from eternity. Perhaps these old stumps upon the knoll 
remember when anciently this lake gleamed in the horizon. 
One wonders if the bare earth itself did not experience emo- 
tion at beholding again so fair a prospect. That fair water 
lies there in the sun thus revealed, so much the prouder 
and fairer because its beauty needed not to be seen. It 
seems yet lonely, sufficient to itself, and superior to observa- 
tion. So are these old sentences like serene lakes in the 
southwest, at length revealed to us, which have so long been 
reflecting our own sky in their bosom. 

The great plain of India lies as in a cup between the 
Himalaya and the ocean on the north and south, and the 
Brahmapootra and Indus on the east and west, wherein the 
primeval race was received. We will not dispute the story. 
We are pleased to read in the natural history of the country, 
of the " i">iiie, larch, spruce, and silver fir," which cover the 



MONDAY. 135 

southern face of the Himalaya range ; of the "gooseberry, 
raspberry, strawberry," which from an imminent temperate 
zone overlook the torrid plains. So did tliis active modern 
life have even then a foothold and lurking place in the 
midst of the stateliness and contemplativeness of those east- 
ern plains. In another era the " lily of the valley, cowslip, 
dandelion," were to work their way down into the plain, and 
bloom in a level zone of their own reaching round the earth. 
Already has the era of the temperate zone arrived, the 
era of the pine and the oak, for the palm and the banyan 
do not supply the wants of this age. The lichens on the 
summits of the rocks will perchance find their level ere 
long. 

As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much 
concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they 
were held by any. We can tolerate all philosophies, Ato- 
mists, Pneumatologists, Atheists, Theists, — Plato, Aristotle, 
Leucippus, Democritus, Pythagoras, Zoroaster, and Con- 
fucius. It is the attitude of these men, more than any com- 
munication which they make, that attracts us. Between 
these and their commentators, it is true, there is an endless 
dispute. But if it comes to this that you compare notes, 
then you are all wrong. As it is, each takes us up into the 
serene heavens, whither the smallest bubble rises as surely 
as the largest, and paints earth and sky for us. Any sincere 
thought is irresistible. The very austerity of the Brahmans 
is tempting to the devotional soul, as a more refined and 
nobler luxury. Wants so easily and gracefully satisfied seem 
like a more refined pleasure. Their conception of creation 
is peaceful as a dream. " When that power awakes, then 
has this world its full expansion ; but when he slumbers 
with a tranquil spirit, then the whole system fades away." 
In the very indistinctness of their theogony a sublime truth 
is implied. It hardly allows the reader to rest in any 
supreme first cause, but directly it hints at a supremer 



136 A WEEK. 

Still which created the last, and the Creator is still behind 
iiicreate. 

Nor will we disturb the antiquity of this Scripture : 
" From fire, from air, and from the sun," it was " milked 
out." One might as well investigate the chronology of 
light and heat. Let the sun shine. Menu understood this 
matter best, when he said, " Those best know the divisions 
of days and nights who understand that the day of Brahma, 
which endures to the end of ^, thousand such ages, [infinite 
ages, nevertheless, according to mortal reckoning,] gives 
rise to virtuous exertions ; and that his night endures as 
long as his day." Indeed, the Mussulman and Tartar dy- 
nasties are beyond all dating. Methinks I have lived under 
them myself. In every man's brain is the Sanscrit. The 
Vedas and their Angas are not so ancient as serene com- 
templation. Why will we be imposed 'on by antiquity ? Is 
the babe young ? When I behold it, it seems more venerable 
than the oldest man ; it is more ancient than Nestor or the 
Sibyls, and bears the wrinkles of father Saturn himself. 
And do we live but in the present? How broad a line is 
that? I sit now on a stump whose rings number centuries 
of growth. If I look around I see that the soil is composed 
of the remains of just such stumps, ancestors to this. The 
earth is covered with mold. I thrust this stick many seons 
deep fnto its surface, and with my heel make a deeper fur- 
row than the elements have plowed here for a thousand 
years. If I listen, I hear the peep of frogs which is older 
than the slime of Egypt, and the distant drumming of a 
partridge on a log, as if it were the pulse-beat of the sum- 
mer air. I raise my fairest and freshest flowers in the old 
mold. Why, what we would fain call new is not skin deep ; 
the earth is not yet stained by it. It is not the fertile 
ground which we walk on, but the leaves that flutter over 
our heads. The newest is but the oldest made visible to 
our senses. When we dig up the soil from a thousand feet 



MONDAY. 137 

below the surface, we call it new, and the plants wliich 
spring from it ; and when our vision pierces deeper into 
space and detects a remoter star, we call that new also. 
The place where we sit is called Hudson, — once it was 
Nottingham, — once 

We should read history as little critically as we consider 
the landscape, and be more interested by the atmospheric 
tints and various lights and shades which the intervening 
spaces create, than by its groundwork and composition. 
It is the morning now turned evening and seen in the 
west, — the same sun, but a new light and atmosphere. 
Its beauty is like the sunset ; not a fresco painting on a 
wall, flat and bounded, but atmospheric and roving or free. 
In reality, history fluctuates as the face of the landscape 
from morning to evening. What is of moment is its hue 
and color. Time hides no treasures ; we want not its 
tJien, but its now. We do not complain that the mountains 
in the horizon are blue and indistinct ; they are the more 
like the heavens. 

Of what moment are facts that can be lost, — which need 
to be commemorated ? The monument of death will outlast 
the memory of the dead. The pyramids do not tell the 
tale that was confided to them : the living fact commem- 
orates itself. Why look in the dark for light ? Strictly 
speaking, the historical societies have not recovered one 
fact from oblivion, but are themselves, instead of the fact, 
that is lost. The researcher is more memorable than the 
researched. The crowd stood admiring the mist and the 
dim outlines of the trees seen through it, when one of their 
number advanced to explore the phenomenon, and with 
fresh admiration all eyes were turned on his dimly retreat- 
ing figure. It is astonishing with how little co-operation 
of the societies, the past is remembered. Its story has in- 
deed had another muse than has been assigned it. There 



138 A WEEK. 

is a good instance of the manner in which all history began, 
in Alwakidis' Arabian Chronicle, "I was informed by 
Ahmed Almatin Aljorha/ni, who had it from Rephda Ebn 
Kais Aldmiri, who had it from Saiph Ebn Fahalah Alchdt- 
quarmi, who had it from Thahet Ebn Alkamah, who said 
he was present at the action." These fathers of history were 
not anxious to preserve, but to learn the fact ; and hence it 
was not forgotten. Critical acumen is exerted in vain to 
uncover the past ; the past cannot ht prese?ited ; we cannot 
know what we are not. But one veil hangs over past, pres- 
ent, and future, and it is the province of the historian to 
find out, not what was, but what is. Where a battle has 
been fought, you will find nothing but the bones of men 
and beasts ; where a battle is being fought, there are hearts 
beating. We will sit on a mound and muse, and not try 
to make these skeletons stand on their legs again. Does 
nature remember, think you, that they 7uere men, or not 
rather that they are bones ? 

Ancient history has an air of antiquity. It should be 
more modern. It is written as if the spectator should be 
thinking of the backside of the picture on the wall, or as if 
the author expected that the dead would be his readers, 
and wished to detail to them their own experience. Men 
seem anxious to accomplish an orderly retreat through the 
centuries, earnestly rebuilding the works behind, as they are 
battered down by the encroachments of time ; but while 
they loiter, they and their works both fall a prey to the arch 
enemy. History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, 
nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go 
to the beginning of things, which natural history might with 
reason assume to do ; but consider the Universal History, 
and then tell us — when did burdock and plantain sprout 
first ? It has been so written, for the most part, that the 
times it describes are with remarkable propriety called dark 
ages. They are dark, as one has observed, because we are 



MONDAY. 139 

SO ill the dark about them. The .sun rarely shines in his- 
tory, what with the dust and confusion ; and when we meet 
with any cheering fact which implies the presence of this 
luminary, we e.xcerpt and modernize it. As when we read 
in the history of the Saxons that Edwin of Northumbria 
"caused stakes to be fixed in the highways where he had 
seen a clear spring," and '' brazen dishes were chained to 
them, to refresh the weary sojourner, whose fatigues Edwin 
had himself experienced." This is worth all Arthur's 
twelve battles. 

" Through the shadow of the world we sweep into the younger day : 
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." 
Than fifty years of Europe better one New England ray ! 

Biography, too, is liable to the same objection ; it should 
be autobiography. Let us not, as the Germans advise, en- 
deavor to go abroad and vex our bowels that we may be 
somebody else to explain him. If I am not I, who will be ? 

But it is f;t that the past should be dark ; though the 
darkness is not so much a quality of the past as of tradition. 
It is not a distance of time, but a distance of relation, 
which makes thus dusky its memorials. What is near to the 
heart of this generation, is fair and bright still. Greece lies 
outspread fair and sunshiny in floods of ligiit, for there is 
the sun and daylight in their literature and art. Homer 
does not allow us to forget that the sun shone, — nor Phidias, 
nor the Parthenon. Yet no era has been wholly dark, nor 
will we too hastily submit to the historian, and congratulate 
ourselves on a blaze of light. If we could pierce the ob- 
scurity of those remote years we should find it light enough ; 
only there is not our day. Some creatures are made to see 
in the dark. There has always been the same amount of 
light in the world. The new and missing stars, the comets 
and eclipses, do not affect the general illumination, for only 
our glasses appreciate them. The eyes of the oldest fossil 
remains, they tell u.s, indicate that the same laws of light 



140 A WEEK. 

prevailed then as now ; always the laws of light are the 
same, but the modes and degrees of seeing vary. The gods 
are partial to no era, but steadily shine their light in the 
heavens, while the eye of the beholder is turned to stone. 
There was but the sun and the eye from the first. The ages 
have not added a new ray to the one, nor altered a fiber of 
the other. 

If we will admit time into our thoughts at all, the myth- 
ologies, those vestiges of ancient poems, wrecks of poems, 
so to speak, the world's inheritance, still reflecting some of 
their original splendor, like the fragments of clouds tinted 
by the rays of the departed sun ; reaching into the latest 
summer day, and allying this hour to the morning of crea- 
tion ; as the poet sings : 

Fragments of the lofty strain 

Float down the tide of years, 
As buoyant on the stormy main 

A parted wreck appears. 

These are the materials and hints for a history of the rise 
and progress of the race ; how, from the condition of ants, 
it arrived at the condition of men, and arts were gradually 
invented. Let a thousand surmises shed some light on this 
story. We will not be confined by historical, even geolog- 
ical periods, which would allow us to doubt of a progress in 
human affairs. If we rise above this wisdom for the day, 
we shall expect that this morning of the race, in which it 
has been supplied with the simple necessaries, with corn, 
and wine, and honey, and oil, and fire, and articulate speech, 
and agricultural and other arts, reared up, by degrees, from 
the condition of ants, to men, will be succeeded by a day of 
equally progressive splendor ; that, in the lapse of the di- 
vine periods, other divine agents and godlike men will assist 
to elevate the race as much above its present condition. 
But we do not know much about it. 



MONDAY. 141 

Thus did one voyageur waking dream, while his compan- 
ion slumbered on the bank. Suddenly a boatman's horn 
was heard, echoing from shore to shore, to give notice of 
his approach to the farmer's wife, with whom he was to take 
his dinner, though in that place only muskrats and king- 
fishers seemed to hear. The current of our reflections and 
our slumbers being thus disturbed, we weighed anchor once 
more. 

As we proceeded on our way in the afternoon, the west- 
ern bank became lower or receded further from the chan- 
nel in some places, leaving a few trees only to fringe the 
water's edge ; while the eastern rose abruptly here and 
there into wooded hills fifty or sixty feet high. The bass, 
tilia Americana, also called the lime or hnden, which was a 
new tree to us, overhung the water with its broad and 
rounded leaf, interspersed with clusters of small hard ber- 
ries, now nearly ripe, and made an agreeable shade for us 
sailors. The inner bark of this genus is the bast, the ma- 
terial of the fisherman's matting, and the ropes and peas- 
ant's shoes, of which the Russians make so much use, and 
also of nets and a coarse cloth in some places. According 
to poets, this was once Philyra, one of the Oceanides. The 
ancients are said to have used its bark for the roofs of cot- 
tages, for baskets, and for a kind of paper called Philyra. 
They also made bucklers of its wood, "on account of its 
flexibility, lightness, and resiliency." It was once much 
used for carving, and is still in demand for panels of car- 
riages, and for various uses for which toughness and flexi- 
bility are required. Its sap affords sugar, and the honey 
made from its flowers is said to be preferred to any other. 
Its leaves are in some countries given to cattle, a kind of 
chocolate has been made of its fruit, a medicine has been 
prepared from an infusion of its flowers, and finally, the 
charcoal made of its wood is greatly valued for gunpowde-r. 

The sight of this tree reminded us that we had reached 



142 A WEEK. 

a strange land to us. As we sailed under this canopy of 
leaves we saw the sky through its chinks, and, as it were, 
the meaning and idea of the tree stamped in a thousand 
hieroglyphics on the heavens. The universe is so aptly 
fitted to our organization, that the eye wanders and reposes 
at the same time. On every side there is something to 
soothe and refresh this sense. Look up at the tree-tops and 
see how finely Nature finishes off her work there. See how 
the pines spire without end higher and higher, and make a 
graceful fringe to the earth. And who shall count the finer 
cobwebs that soar and float away from their utmost tops, 
and the myriad insects that dodge between them. Leaves 
are of more various forms than the alphabets of all lan- 
guages put together ; of the oaks alone there are hardly 
two alike, and each expresses its own character. 

In all her products Nature only develops her simplest 
germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of in- 
vention to create birds. The hawk, which now takes his 
flight over the top of the wood, was at first perchance only 
a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves 
she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear 
carol of the bird. 

Salmon Brook comes in from the west under the railroad, 
a mile and a half below the village of Nashua. We rowed 
up far enough into the meadows which border it, to learn 
its piscatorial history from a haymaker on its banks. He 
told us that the silver eel was formerly abundant here, and 
pointed to some sunken creels at its mouth. This man's 
memory and imagination were fertile in fishermen's tales of 
floating isles in bottomless ponds, and of lakes mysteriously 
stocked with fishes, and would have kept us till nightfall to 
listen, but we could not afford to loiter in this roadstead, 
and so stood out to our sea again. Though we never trod 
in these meadows, but only touched their margin with our 
hands, we still retain a pleasant memory of them. 



MONDAY. 143 

Salmon Brook, whose name is said to be a translation 
from the Indian, was a favorite haunt of the aborigines. 
Here, too, the first white settlers of Nashua planted, and 
some dents in the earth, where their houses stood, and the 
wrecks of ancient apple trees are still visible. About one 
mile up this stream stood the house of old John Lovewell, 
who was an ensign in tiie army of Oliver Cromwell, and the 
father of " famous Captain I.ovewell." He settled here be- 
fore 1690, and died about 1754, at the age of one hundred 
and twenty years. He is tliought to have been engaged 
in the famous Narragansett swamp fight, which took place 
in 1675, before he came here. The Indians are said to have 
spared him in succeeding wars on account of his kindness 
to them. Even in 1700 he was so old and gray-headed that 
his scalp was worth nothing, since the French Governor 
offered no bounty for such. I have stood in the dent of his 
cellar on the bank of the brook, and talked there with one 
whose grandfather had, whose father might have, talked 
with Lovewell. Here, also, he had a mill in his old age, and 
kept a small store. He was remembered by some who 
were recently living, as a hale old man who drove the boys 
out of his orchard with his cane. Consider the triumphs of 
the mortal man, and what poor trophies it would have to 
show, to wit : He cobbled shoes without glasses at a hun- 
dred, and cut a handsome swathe at a hundred and five ! 
Lovewell's house is said to have been the first which Mrs. 
Dustan reached on her escape from the Indians. Here 
probably the hero of Pequawket was born and bred. Close 
by may be seen the cellar and the grave-stone of Joseph 
Hassell, who, as was elsewhere recorded, with his wife Anna 
and son Benjamin, and Mary Marks, " were slain by our 
Indian enemies on September 2, [1691] in the evening." 
As Gookin observed on a previous occasion, " The Indian 
rod upon the English backs had not yet done God's er- 
rand." Salmon Brook near its mouth is still a solitary 



144 A WEEK. 

Stream, meandering through woods and meadows, while the 
then uninhabited mouth of the Nashua now resounds with 
the din of a manufacturing town. 

A stream from Otternic pond in Hudson comes in just 
above Salmon Brook, on the opposite side. There was a 
good view of Uncannunuc, the most conspicuous mountain 
in these parts, from the bank here, seen rising over the west 
end of the bridge above. We soon after passed the village 
of Nashua, on the river of the same name, where there is a 
covered bridge over the Merrimac. The Nashua, which is 
one of the largest tributaries, flows from Wachusett Moun- 
tain, through Lancaster, Groton, and other towns, where it 
has formed well known elm-shaded meadows, but near its 
mouth it is obstructed by falls and factories, and did not 
tempt us to explore it. 

Far away from here, in Lancaster, with another compan- 
ion, I have crossed the broad valley of the Nashua, over 
which we had so long looked westward from the Concord 
hills, without seeing it, to the blue mountains in the horizon. 
So many streams, so many meadows and woods and quiet 
dwellings of men had lain concealed between us and those 
Delectable Mountains : from yonder hill on the road to 
Tyngsboro' you may get a good view of them. There 
where it seemed uninterrupted forest to our youthful eyes, 
between two neighboring pines in the horizon, lay the valley 
of the Nashua, and this very stream was even then winding at 
its bottom, and then, as now, it was here silently mingling its 
waters with the Merrimac. The clouds which floated over 
its meadows and were born there, seen far in the west, 
gilded by the rays of the setting sun, had adorned a thou- 
sand evening skies for us. But, as it were, by a turf wall 
this valley was concealed, and in our journey to those hills 
it was first gradually revealed to us. Summer and winter 
our eyes had rested on the dim outline of the mountains, to 
which distance and indistinctness lent a grandeur not their 



MONDAY. 145 

own, so that they served to interpret all the all'.isions of 
poets and travelers. Standing on the Concord Cliffs we 
thus spoke our mind to them : 

With frontier strength ye stand your ground, 

With grand content ye circle round, 

Tumultuous silence for all sound, 

Ye distant nursery of rills, 

Monadnock and the Peterboro' Hills ; 

Firm argument that never stirs, 

Outcircling the philosophers, 

Like some vast fleet. 

Sailing through rain and sleet, 

Through winter's cold and summer's heat ; 

Still holding on upon your high emprise. 

Until ye find a shore amid the skies ; 

Not skulking close to land. 

With cargo contraband. 

For they who sent a venture out by ye 

Have set the Sun to see 

Their honesty. 

Ships of the line, each one, 

Ye westward run. 

Convoying clouds, 

Which cluster in your shrouds. 

Always before the gale. 

Under a press of sail, 

With weight of metal all untold, — 

I seem to feel ye in my firm seat here, 

Immeasurable depth of hold. 

And breadth of beam, and length of running gear. 

Methinks ye take luxurious pleasure 

In your novel western leisure ; 

So cool your brows and freshly blue, 

As Time had nought for ye to do ; 

For ye lie at your length, 

An unappropriated strength, 

Unhewn primeval timber. 

For knees so stiff, for masts so limber ; 

The stock of which new earths are made. 

One day to be our ivestern trade, 



146 A WEEK. 

Fit for the stanchions of a world 

Which through the seas of space is hurled. 

While we enjoy a lingering ray, 

Ye still o'ertop the western day, 

Reposing yonder on God's croft 

Like solid stacks of hay ; 

So bold a line as ne'er was writ 

On any page by human wit ; 

The forest glows as if 

An enemy's camp-fires shone 

Along the horizon, 

Or the day's funeral pyre 

Were lighted there ; 

Edged with silver and with gold, 

The clouds hang o'er in damask fold, 

And with such depth of amber light 

The west is dight, 

Where still a few rays slant, 

That even Heaven seems extravagant. 

Watatic Hill 

Lies on the horizon's sill 

Like a child's toy left over night. 

And other duds to left and right, 

On the earth's edge, mountains and trees. 

Stand as they were on air graven, 

Or as the vessels in a haven 

Await the morning breeze. 

I fancy even 

Through your defiles windeth the way to heaven 

And yonder still, in spite of history's page. 

Linger the golden and the silver age ; 

Upon the laboring gale 

The news of future centuries is brought. 

And of new dynasties of thought. 

From your remotest vale. 

But special I remember thee, 
Wachusett, who like me 
Standest alone without society. 
Thy far blue eye, 



MONDAY. 147 

A remnant of the sky, 

Seen though the clearing or the gorge, 

Or from the windows of the forge, 

Doth leaven all it passes by. 

Nothing is true 

But stands 'tween me and you, 

Thou western pioneer, 

Who know'st not shame nor fear, 

By venturous spirit driven 

Under the eaves of heaven ; 

And canst expand thee there, 

And breathe enough of air ? 

Even beyond the West 

Thou migratest. 

Into unclouded tracts. 

Without a pilgrim's a.x. 

Cleaving thy road on high 

With thy well-tempered brow. 

And mak'st thyself a clearing in the sky. 

Upholding heaven, holding down earth. 

Thy pastime from thy birth ; 

Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other, 

May I approve myself thy worthy brother ! 

At length, like Rasselas and other inhabitants of happy 
valleys, we had resolved to scale the blue wall which 
bounded the western horizon, though not without mis- 
givings that thereafter no visible fairy land would exist for 
us. But it would be long to tell of our adventures, and we 
have no time this afternoon, transporting ourselves in 
imagination up this hazy Nashua valley, to go over again 
that pilgrimage. We have since made many similar excur- 
sions to the principal mountains of New England and New 
York, and even far in the wilderness, and have passed a 
night on the summit of many of them. And now when we 
look again westward from our native hills, Wachusett and 
Monadnock have retreated once more among the blue and 
fabulous mountains in the horizon, though our eyes rest on 
the very rocks on both of them, where we have pitched our 



148 A WEEK. 

tent for a night, and boiled our hasty-pudding amid the 
clouds. 

As late as 1724 there was no house on the north side of 
the Nashua, but only scattered wigwams and gristly forests 
between this frontier and Canada. In September of that 
year, two men who were engaged in making turpentine on 
that side — for such were the first enterprises in the wilder- 
ness — were taken captive and carried to Canada by a party 
of thirty Indians. Ten of the inhabitants of Dunstable 
going to look for them, found the hoops of their barrel cut, 
and the turpentine spread on the ground. I have been 
told by an inhabitant of Tyngsboro', who had the story 
from his ancestors, that one of these captives, when the 
Indians were about to upset his barrel of turpentine, seized 
a pine knot and, flourishing it, swore so resolutely that he 
would kill the first who touched it, that they refrained, and 
when at length he returned from Canada he found it still 
standing. Perhaps there was more than one barrel. However 
this may have been, the scouts knew by marks on the trees, 
made with coal mixed with grease, that the men were not 
killed, but taken prisoners. One of the company, named 
Farwell, perceiving that the turpentine had not done 
spreading, concluded that the Indians had been gone but a 
short time, and they accordingly went in instant pursuit. 
Contrary to the advice of Farwell, following directly on 
their trail up the Merrimac, they fell into an ambuscade 
near Thornton's Ferry, in the present town of Merrimac, 
and nine were killed, only one, Farwell, escaping ^fter a 
vigorous pursuit. The men of Dunstable went out and 
picked up their bodies, and carried them all down to Dun- 
stable, and buried them. It is almost word for word as in 
the Robin Hood ballad : 

They carried these foresters into fair Nottingham, 
As many there did know, 



MONDAY, 149 

They digg'd them graves in their churchyard. 
And they buried them all a-row. 

Nottingham is only the other side of the river, and they 
were not exactly all a-row. You may read in the church- 
yard at Dunstable, under the " Memento Mori," and the 
name of one of them, how they " departed this life," and 

This man with seven more that lies in 

this grave was slew all in a day by 

the Indians. 

The stones of some others of the company stand around the 
common grave with their separate inscriptions. Eight were 
buried here, but nine were killed, according to the best au- 
thorities. 

Gentle river, gentle river, 

Lo, thy streams are stained with gore, 

Many a brave and noble captain 
Floats along thy willowed shore. 

All beside thy limpid waters, 

All beside thy sands so bright, 
Indian chiefs and Christian warriors 

Joined in fierce and mortal fight. 

It is related in the History of Dunstable, that on the re- 
turn of Farwell the Indians were engaged by a fresh party, 
which they compelled to retreat, and pursued as far as the 
Nashua, where they fought across the stream at its mouth. 
After the departure of the Indians, the figure of an Indian's 
head was found carved by them on a large tree by the shore, 
which circumstance has given its name to this part of the 
village of Nashville, — the " Indian Head." "It was ob- 
served by some judicious," says Gookin, referring to Philip's 
war, " that at the beginning of the war, the English sol- 
diers made a nothing of the Indians, and many spake words 
to this effect : that one Englishman was sufficient to chase 



i^O A WEEK. 

ten Indians ; many reckoned it was no other but Vejit, vidi, 
viiiy But we may conclude that the judicious would by 
this time have made a different observation. 

Farwell appears to have been the only one who had 
studied his profession, and understood the business of hunt- 
ing Indians. He lived to fight another day, for the next 
year he was Lovewell's lieutenant at Pequawket, but that 
time, as we have related, left his bones in the wilderness. 
His name still reminds us of twilight days and forest scouts 
on Indian trails, with an uneasy scalp — an indispensable 
hero to New England. As the more recent poet of Love- 
well's fight has sung, halting a little, but bravely still : 

Then did the crimson streams that flowed, 

Seem Uke the waters of the brook, 
That brightly shine, that loudly dash, 
• Far down the cliffs of Agiochook. 

These battles sound incredible to us. I think posterity 
will doubt if such things ever were ; if our bold ancestors 
who settled this land were not struggling rather with the 
forest shadows, and not with a copper-colored race of men. 
They were vapors, fever and ague of the unsettled woods. 
Now, only a few arrow-heads are turned up by the plow. 
In the Pelasgic, the Etruscan, or the British story, there is 
nothing so shadowy and unreal. 

It is a wild and antiquated looking grave-yard, overgrown 
with bushes, on the high road, about a quarter of a mile 
from and overlooking the Merrimac, with a deserted mill 
stream bounding it on one side, where lie the earthly re- 
mains of the ancient inhabitants of Dunstable. We passed 
it three or four miles below here. You may read there the 
names of Lovewell, Farwell, and many others whose families 
were distinguished in Indian warfare. We noticed there 
two large masses of granite, more than a foot thick and 



MONDAY. 15 1 

rudely squared, lying flat on the ground over the remains of 
the first pastor and his wife. 

It is remarkable that the dead lie everywhere under 
stones, 

"Strata jacent passim suo quasque sub " lapide — 

corpora^ we might say, if the measure allowed. When the 
stone is a slight one and stands upright, pointing to the 
skies, it does not oppress the spirits of the traveler to medi- 
tate by it ; but these did seem a little heathenish to us ; 
and so are all large monuments over men's bodies, from the 
pyramids down. A monument should at least be '* star-y- 
pointing," to indicate whither the spirit is gone, and not 
prostrate, like the body it has deserted. There have been 
some nations who could do nothing but construct tombs, 
and these are the only traces which they have left. They 
are the heathen. But why these stones, so upright and em- 
phatic, like exclamation points ! What was there so remark- 
able that lived ? Why should the monument be so much 
more enduring than the fame which it is designed to com- 
memorate, — a stone to a bone ? " Here lies," — " Here 
lies " ; — why do they not sometimes write, There rises ? Is 
it a monument to the body only that is intended ? " Hav- 
ing reached the term of his natural life ; " — would it not be 
truer to say. Having reached the term of his unnatural Wit ? 
The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth. If any character 
is given, it should be as severely true as the decision of the 
three judges below, and not the partial testimony of friends. 
Friends and contemporaries should supply only the name 
and date, and leave it to posterity to write the epitaph. 

Here lies an honest man, 
Rear-Admiral Van. 

Faith, then ye have 
Two in one grave, 



152 A WEEK. 

For in his favor, 

Here too lies the Engraver. 

Fame itself is but an epitaph ; as late, as false, as true. 
But they only are the true epitaphs which Old Mortality 
retouches. 

A man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse 
any portion of nature by being buried in it. For the most 
part, the best man's spirit makes a fearful sprite to haunt 
his grave, and it is therefore much to the credit of Little 
John, the famous follower of Robin Hood, that his grave 
was "long celebrous for the yielding of excellent whet- 
stones." I confess that I have but little love for such col- 
lections as they have at the Catacombs, Pere la Chaise, 
Mount Auburn, and even this Dunstable grave-yard. At 
any rate, nothing but great antiquity can make grave-yards 
interesting to me. I have no friends there. It may be that 
I am not competent to write the poetry of the grave. The 
farmer who has skimmed his farm might perchance leave 
his body to Nature to be plowed in, and in some measure 
restore its fertility. We should not retard but forward her 
economies. 

Soon the village of Nashua was out of sight and the 
woods were gained again, and we rowed slowly on before 
sunset, looking for a solitary place in which to spend the 
night. A few evening clouds began to be reflected in the 
water, and the surface was dimpled only here and there by 
a muskrat crossing the stream. We camped at length near 
Penichook Brook, on the confines of Nashville, by a deep 
ravine, under the skirts of a pine wood, where the dead 
pine leaves were our carpet, and their tawny boughs 
stretched over head. But fire and smoke soon tamed the 
scene ; the rocks consented to be o-ur walls, and the pines 
our roof. A woodside was already the fittest locality for us. 

The wilderness is near, as well as dear, to every man. 



MONDAY. 153 

Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild 
wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of 
men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and 
beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasion- 
ally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the 
sand-heaps of fresh fox burrows, have sprung up in their 
midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples 
asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our 
lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine 
flourishes and the jay still screams. 

We had found a safe harbor for our boat, and as the sun 
was setting carried up our furniture, and soon arranged 
our house upon the bank ; and while the kettle steamed at 
the tent door, we chatted of distant friends, and of the 
sights we were to behold, and wondered which way the 
towns lay from us. Our cocoa was soon boiled, and sup- 
per set upon our chest, and we lengthened out this meal, 
like old voyageurs, with our talk. Meanwhile we spread 
the map on the ground, and read in the gazetteer when the 
first settlers came here and got a township granted. Then, 
when supper was done, and we had written the journal of 
our voyage, we wrapped our buffaloes about us, and lay 
down with our heads pillowed on our arms, listening awhile 
to the distant baying of a dog, or the murmurs of the river, 
or to the wind, which had not gone to rest, — 

The western wind came lumbering in, 
Bearing a faint Pacific din, 
Our evening mail, swift at the call 
Of its Post-master General ; 
Laden with news from Californ', 
Whate'er transpired hath since morn, 
How wags the world by brier and brake 
From hence to Athabasca lake ; 

or half awake and half asleep, dreaming of a star which, 
glimmered through our cotton roof. Perhaps at midnight 



154 A WEEK. 

one was awakened by a cricket shrilly singing on his shouldei', 
or by a hunting spider in his eye, and was lulled asleep 
again by some streamlet purling its way along at the bot- 
tom of a wooded and rocky ravine in our neighborhood. 
It was pleasant to lie with our heads so low in the grass, 
and hear what a tinkling, ever-busy laboratory it was. A 
thousand little artisans beat on their anvils all iiii^ht long. 
Far in the night, as we were falling asleep on the bank 
of the Merrimac, we heard some tyro beating a drum 
incessantly, in preparation for a country muster, as we 
learned, and we thought of the line, 

When the drum beat at dead of night. 
We could have assured him that his beat would be 
answered, and the forces be mustered. Fear not, thou 
drummer of the night, we too will be there. And still he 
drummed on in the silence and the dark. This stray sound 
from a far-off sphere came to our ears from time to time, 
far, sweet, and significant, and we listened with such an 
unprejudiced sense as if for the first time we heard at all. 
No doubt he was an insignificant drummer enough, but his 
music afforded us a prime and leisure hour, and we felt 
that we were in season wholly. These simple sounds related 
us to the stars. Aye, there was a logic in them so convinc- 
ing that the combined sense of mankind could never make 
me doubt their conclusions. I stop my habitual thinking, 
as if the plow had suddenly run deeper in its furrow through 
the crust of the world. How can I go on, who have just 
stepped over such a bottomless sky-light in the bog of my 
life. Suddenly old Time winked at me, — ah, you know me, 
you rogue, — and news had come that it was well. That 
ancient universe is in such capital health, I think undoubt- 
edly it will never die. Heal yourself, doctors ; by God I 
live. 

Then idle Time ran gadding by 

And left me with Eternity alone ; 



MONDAY. 155 

I hear beyond the range of sound, 
I see beyond the verge of sight, — 

I see, smell, taste, hear, feel that everlasting Something to 
which we are allied, at once our maker, our abode, our 
destiny, our very Selves ; the one historic truth, the most 
remarkable fact which can become the distinct and unin- 
vited subject of our thought, the actual glory of the uni- 
verse ; the only fact which a human being cannot avoid 
recognizing, or in some way forget or dispense with. 

It doth expand my privacies 

To ail, and leave me single in the crowd. 

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and 
I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while. 

Now chiefly is my natal hour. 

And only now my prime of life. 

I will not doubt the love untold, 

Which not my worth nor want hath bought, 

Which wooed me young and wooes me old, 

And to this evening hath me brought. 

What are ears ? what is Time ? that this particular series 
of sounds called a strain of music, an invisible and fairy 
troop which never brushed the dew from any mead, can be 
wafted down through the centuries from Homer to me, and 
he have been conversant with that same aerial and mysteri- 
ous charm which now so tingles my ears ? What a fine 
communication, from age to age, of the fairest and noblest 
thoughts, the aspirations of ancient men, even such as were 
never communicated by speech ! It is the flower of lan- 
guage, thought colored and curved, fluent and flexible, its 
crystal fountain tinged with the sun's rays, and its purling 
ripples reflecting the grass and the clouds. A strain of 
music reminds me of a passage of the Vedas, and I associate 
with it the idea of infinite remoteness as well as of beauty 
and serenity, for to the senses that is furthest from us which 
addresses the greatest depth within us, It teaches us again 



156 A WEEK. 

and again to trust the remotest and finest as the divinest 
instinct, and makes a dream our only real experience. As 
polishing expresses the vein in marble, and grain in wood, 
so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. The 
hero is the sole patron of music. That harmony which ex- 
ists naturally between the hero's moods and the universe, 
the soldier would fain imitate with drum and trumpet. 
When we are in health, all sounds fife and drum for us ; we 
hear the notes of music in the air, or catch its echoes dying 
away when we awake in the dawn. Marching is when the 
pulse of the hero beats in unison with the pulse of Nature, 
and he steps to the measure of the universe ; then there is 
true courage and invincible strength. 

Plutarch says that " Plato thinks the gods never gave 
men music, the science of melody and harmony, for mere 
delectation or to tickle the ear ; but that the discordant 
parts of the circulations and beauteous fabric of the soul and 
that of it that roves about the body, and many times, for 
want of tune and air, breaks forth into many extravagances' 
and excesses, might be sweetly recalled and artfully wound 
up to their former consent and agreement." 

Music is the sound of the universal laws promulgated. 
It is the only assured tone. There are in it such strains as 
far surpass any man's faith in the loftiness of his destiny. 
Things are to be learned which it will be worth the while to 
learn. Formerly I heard these 

RUMORS FROM AN ^OLIAN HARP. 

There is a vale which none hath seen,- 
Where foot of man has never been, 
Such as here lives with toil and strife, 
An anxious and a sinful life. 

There every virtue has its birth, 
Ere it descends upon the earth. 
And thither every deed returns, 
Which in the generous bosom burns. 



MONDAY. 157 

There love is warm, and youth is young, 
And poetry is yet unsung, 
For Virtue still adventures there, 
And freely breathes her native air. 

And ever, if you hearken well, 
You still may hear its vesper bell, 
And tread of high-souled men go by, 
Their thoughts conversing with the sky. 

According to Jamblichus, " Pythagoras did not procure 
for liimself a thing of this kind through instruments or the 
voice, but employing a certain ineffable divinity, and which 
it is difficult to apprehend, he extended his ears and fixed 
his intellect in the sublime symphonies of the world, he 
alone hearing and understanding, as it appears, the universal 
harmony and consonance of the spheres, and the stars that 
are moved through them, and which produce a fuller and 
more intense melody than anything effected by mortal 
sounds." 

Traveling on foot very early one morning due east from 
here about twenty miles, from Caleb Harriman's tavern in 
Hampstead toward Haverhill, when I reached the railroad 
in Plaistow, I heard at some distance a faint music in the air 
like an ^olian harp, which I immediately suspected to pro- 
ceed from the chord of the telegraph vibrating in the just 
awakening morning wind, and applying my ear to one of 
the posts I was convinced that it was so. It was the tele- 
graph harp singing its message through the countr}', its 
message sent not by men, but by gods. Perchance, like 
the statue of Memnon, it resounds only in the morning when 
the first rays of the sun fall on it. It was like the first lyre 
or shell heard on the seashore, — that vibrating chord high 
in the air over the shores of earth. So have all things their 
higher and their lower uses. I heard a fairer news than the 
journals ever print. It told of things worthy to hear, and 
worthy of the electric fluid to carry the news of, not of the 



158 A WEF.K. 

price of cotton and flour, but it hinted at the price of the 
world itself and of things which are priceless, of absolute 
truth and beauty. 

Still the drum rolled on, and stirred our blood to fresh ex- 
travagance that night. The clarion sound and clang of 
corselet and buckler were heard from man}' a hamlet of the 
soul, and many a knight was arming for the fight behind 
the encamped stars. 

Before each van 
Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears 
Till thickest legions close ; with feats of arms 
From either end of Heaven the welkin burns. 



Away ! away ! away ! away ! 

Ye have not kept your secret well, 
I will abide that other day, 

Those other lands ye tell. 

Has time no leisure left for these, 

The acts that ye rehearse ? 
Is not eternity a lease 

For better deeds than verse ? 

'Tis sweet to hear of heroes dead, 

To know them still a'ive, 
But sweeter if we earn their bread, 

And in us they survive. 

Our life should feed the springs of fame 

With a perennial wave, 
As ocean feeds the babbling founts 

Which find in it their grave. 

Ye skies drop gently round my breast, 

And be my corselet blue, 
Ye earth receive my lance in rest. 

My faithful charger you ; 

Ye stars my spear-heads in the sky, 
My arrow-tips ye are, — 



MONDAY. 159 

I see the routed foemen fly, 
My bright spears fixed are. 

Give me an angel for a foe, 

Fix now the place and time, 
And straight to meet him I will go 

Above the starry chime. 

And with our clashing bucklers' clang 

The heavenly spheres shall ring, 
While bright the northern lights shall hang 

Beside our tourneying. 

And if she lose her champion true, 

Tell Heaven not despair, 
For I will be her champion new, 

Her fame I will repair. 

There was a high wind this night, which we afterward 
learned had been still more violent elsewhere, and had 
done much injury to the cornfields far and near ; but we 
only heard it sigh from time to time, as if it had no license 
to shake the foundations of our tent ; the pines murmured, 
the water rippled, and the tent rocked a little, but we only 
laid our ears closer to the ground, while the blast swept on 
to alarm other men, and long before sunrise we were ready 
to pursue our voyage as usual. 



TUESDAY. 



On either side the river lie 
Long fields of barley and of rye, 
That clothe the wold and meet the sky ; 
And thro' the fields the road runs by 

To many-towered Camelot. 

Tennyson. 

Long before daylight we ranged abroad, with hatchet in 
hand, in search of fuel, and made the yet slumbering and 
dreaming wood resound with our blows. Then with our fire 
we burned up a portion of the loitering night, while the 
kettle sang its homely strain to the morning star. We 
tramped about the shore, waked all the muskrats, and 
scared up the bittern and birds that were asleep upon their 
roots ; we hauled up and upset our boat, and washed it 
and rinsed out the clay, talking aloud, as if it were broad 
day, until at length, by three o'clock, we had completed our 
preparations and were ready to pursue voyage as usual ; 
so, shaking the clay from our feet, we pushed into the fog. 

Though we were enveloped in mist as usual, we trusted 
that there was a bright day behind it. 

Ply the oars ! away ! away ! 
In each dewdrop of the morning 

Lies the promise of a day. 
Rivers from the sunrise flow 

Springing with the dewy morn ; 
Voyageurs 'gainst time do row, 
Idle noon nor sunset know, 

Ever even with the dawn. 
i6o 



TUESDAY. l6l 

Belknap, the historian of this State, says that " In the neigh- 
borhood of fresh rivers and ponds, a whitish fog in the 
morning, lying over the water, is a sure indication of fair 
weather for that day ; and when no fog is seen, rain is ex- 
pected before night." That which seemed to us to invest 
the world, was only a narrow and shallow wreath of vapor 
stretched over the channel of the Merrimac from the sea- 
board to the mountains. More extensive fogs, however, 
have their own limits. I once saw the day break from the 
top of Saddle-back Mountain in Massachusetts, above the 
clouds. As we cannot distinguish objects through this 
dense fog, let me tell the story more at length. 

I had come over the hills on foot and alone in serene 
summer days, plucking the raspberries by the wayside, and 
occasionally buying a loaf of bread at a farmer's house, 
with a knapsack on my back, which held a few traveler's 
books and a change of clothing, and a staff in my hand. I 
had that morning looked down from the Hoosack Mountain, 
where the road crosses it, on the village of North Adams in 
the valley, three miles away, under my feet, showing how un- 
even the earth may sometimes be, and making it seem an 
accident that it should ever be level and convenient for the 
feet of man. Putting a little rice and sugar and a tin cup 
into my knapsack at this village, I began in the afternoon to 
ascend the mountain, whose summit is 3600 feet above the 
level of the sea, and was seven or eight miles distant by the 
path. My route lay up a long and spacious valley called 
the Bellows, because the winds rush up or down it with vio- 
lence in storms, sloping up to the very clouds between the 
principal range and a lower mountain. There were a few 
farms scattered along at different elevations, each com- 
manding a fine prospect of the mountains to the north, and 
a stream ran down the middle of the valley, on which, near 
the head, there was a mill. It seemed a road for the pilgrim 



l62 A WFPK. 

to enter upon who would climb to the gates of heaven. Now 
I crossed a hay.-field, and now over the brook on a slight 
bridge, still gradually ascending all the while, with a sort of 
awe, and filled with indefinite expectations as to what kind of 
inhabitants and what kind of nature 1 should come to at last. 
It now seemed some advantage that the earth was uneven, 
for one could not imagine a more noble position for a 
farm-house than this vale afforded, farther from or nearer 
to its head, from a glen-like seclusion overlooking the 
country at a great elevation between these two mountain 
walls. 

It reminded me of the homesteads of the Huguenots, on 
Staten Island, off the coast of New Jersey. The hills in 
the interior of this island, though comparatively low, are 
penetrated in various directions by similar sloping valleys 
on a humble scale, gradually narrowing and rising to the 
center, and at the head of these the Huguenots, who were 
the first settlers, placed their houses, quite within the land, 
in rural and sheltered places, in leafy recesses where the 
breeze played with the poplar and the gum tree, from which, 
with equal security in calm and storm, they looked out 
through a widening vista, over miles of forest and stretch- 
ing salt marsh, to the Huguenots' Tree, an old elm on the 
shore at whose root they had landed, and across the 
spacious outer bay of New York to Sandy Hook and the 
Highlands of Neversink, and thence over leagues of the 
Atlantic, perchance to some faint vessel in the horizon, 
almost a day's sail on her voyage to that Europe whence 
they had come. When walking in the interior there, in the 
midst of rural scenery, where there was as little to remind 
me of the ocean as amid the New Hampshire hills, I have 
suddenly, through a gap, a cleft or " clove road," as the 
Dutch settlers called it, caught sight of a ship under full 
sail, over a field of corn, twenty or thirty miles at sea. The 
effect was similar, since I had no means of measuring dis- 



TUESDAY. 163 

tances, to seeing a painted ship passed backward and for- 
ward through a magic lantern. 

But to return to the mountain. It seemed as If he must 
be the most singular and heavenly-minded man whose 
dwelUng stood highest upon the valley. The thunder had 
rumbled at my heels all the way, but the shower passed off 
in another direction, though if it had not, I half believed 
that I should get above it. I at length reached the last 
house but one, where the path to the summit diverged to 
the right, while the summit itself rose directly in front. 
But I determined to follow up the valley to its head, and 
then find my own route up the steep, as the shorter and 
more adventurous way. I had thoughts of returning to 
this house, which was well kept and so nobly placed, the 
next day, and perhaps remaining a week there, if I could 
have entertainment. Its mistress was a frank and hos- 
pitable young woman, who stood before me in a dishabille, 
busily and unconcernedly combing her long black hair 
while she talked, giving her head the necessary toss 
with each sweep of the comb, with lively, sparkling eyes, 
and full of interest in that lower world from which I had 
come, talking all the while as familiarly as if she had known 
me for years, and reminding me of a cousin of mine. She 
at first had taken me for a student from Williamstown, for 
they went by in parties, she said, either riding or walking, 
almost every pleasant day, and were a pretty wild set of 
fellows ; but they never went by the way I was going. As 
I passed the last house, a man called out to know what I 
had to sell, for seeing my knapsack, he thought that I might 
be a peddler, who was taking this unusual route over the 
ridge of the valley into South Adams. He told me that it 
was still four or five miles to the summit by the path which 
I had left, though not more than two in a straight line from 
where I was, but nobody ever went this way ; there was no 
path, and I should find it as steep as the roof of a house. 



164 A WEEK. 

But I knew that I was more used to woods and mountains 
than he, and went along through his cow-yard, while he, 
looking at the sun, shouted after me that I should not get 
to the top that night. I soon reached the head of the val- 
ley, but as I could not see the summit from this point, I 
ascended a low mountain on the opposite side, and took its 
bearing with my compass. I at once entered the woods, 
and began to climb the steep side of the mountain in a di- 
agonal direction, taking the bearing of a tree every dozen 
rods. The ascent was by no means difficult or unpleasant, 
and occupied much less time than it would have taken to fol- 
low the path. Even country people, I have observed, magnify 
the difficulty of traveling in the forest, and especially among 
mountains. They seem to lack their usual common sense 
in this. I have climbed several higher mountains without 
guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that 
it takes only more time and patience commonly than to 
travel the smoothest highway. It is very rare that you meet 
with obstacles in this world which the humblest man has 
not faculties to surmount. It is true, we may come to a 
perpendicular precipice, but we need not jump off, nor run 
our heads against it. A man may jump down his own cel- 
lar stairs, or dash his brains out against his chimney, if he 
is mad. So far as my experience goes, travelers generally 
exaggerate the difficulties of the way. Like most evil, the 
difficulty is imaginary ; for what's the hurry? If a person 
lost would conclude that after all he is not lost, he is not 
beside himself, but standing in his own old shoes on the 
very spot where he is, and that for the time being he will 
live there ; but the places that have known him, they are 
lost, — how much anxiety and danger would vanish. I am 
not alone if I stand by myself. Who knows where in space 
this globe is rolling ? Yet we will not give ourselves up for 
lost, let it go where it will. 

I made my way steadily upward in a straight line through 



TUESDAY. 165 

a dense undergrowth of mountain laurel, until the trees began 
to have a scraggy and infernal look, as if contending with 
frost goblins, and at length I reached the summit, just as 
the sun was setting. Several acres here had been cleared, 
and were covered with rocks and stumps, and there was a 
rude observatory in the middle which overlooked the woods. 
I had one fair view of the country before the sun went down, 
but I was too thirsty to waste any light in viewing the pros- 
pect, and set out directly to find water. First, going down 
a well-beaten path for half a mile through the low scrubby 
wood, till I came to where the water stood in the tracks of 
the horses which had carried travelers up, I lay down flat, 
and drank these dry one after another, a pure, cold, spring- 
like water, but yet I could not fill my dipper, though I con- 
trived little syphons of grass stems and ingenious aque- 
ducts on a small scale ; it was too slow a process. Then 
remembering that I had passed a moist place near the top 
on my way up, I returned to find it again, and here with 
sharp stones and my hands, in the twilight, I made a well 
about two feet deep, which was soon filled with pure cold 
water, and the birds, too, came and drank at it. So I filled 
my dipper, and making my way back to the observatory, 
collected some dry sticks and made a fire on some flat stones, 
which had been placed on the floor for that purpose, and so 
I soon cooked my supper of rice, having already whittled a 
wooden spoon to eat it with. 

I sat up during the evening, reading by the light of the 
fire the scraps of newspapers in which some party had 
wrapped their luncheon ; the prices current in New York 
and Boston, the advertisements, and the singular editorials 
which some had seen fit to publish, not foreseeing under 
what critical circumstances they would be read. I read 
these things at a vast advantage there, and it seemed to me 
that the advertisements, or what is called the business part 
of a paper, were greatly the best, the most useful, natural, 



l66 A WEEK. 

and respectable. Almost all the opinions and sentiments 
expressed were so little considered, so shallow and flimsy, 
that I thought the very texture of the paper must be weaker 
in that part and tear the more easily. The advertisements 
and the prices current were more closely allied to nature, 
and were respectable in some measure as tide and me- 
teorological tables are ; but the reading matter, which I 
remembered was most prized down below, unless it was 
some humble record of science, or an extract from some old 
classic, struck me as strangely whimsical, and crude, and 
one idea'd, like a school-boy's theme, such as youths write 
and after burn. The opinions were of that kind that are 
doomed to wear a different aspect to-morrow, like last year's 
fashions ; as if mankind were very green indeed, and would 
be ashamed of themselves in a few years, when they had 
outgrown this verdant period. There waSj moreover, a 
singular disposition to wit and humor, but rarely the slight- 
est real success ; and the apparent success was a terrible 
satire on the attempt ; as if the Evil Genius of man laughed 
the loudest at his best jokes. The advertisements, as I 
have said, such as were serious, and not of the modern 
quack kind, suggested pleasing and poetic thoughts ; for 
commerce is really as interesting as nature. The very 
names of the commodities were poetic, and as suggestive 
as if they had been inserted in a pleasing poem : Lumber, 
Cotton, Sugar, Hides, Guano, and Logwood. Some sober, 
private, and original thought would have been grateful to 
read there, and as much in harmony with the circumstances 
as if it had been written on a mountain top ; for it is of a 
fashion which never changes, and as respectable as hides 
and logwood, or any natural product. What an inestimable 
companion such a scrap of paper would have been, contain- 
ing some fruit of a mature life. What a relic ! What a re- 
cipe ! It seemed a divine invention, by which not mere shin- 



TUESDAY. 167 

ingcoin, but sliining and current thoughts, could be brought 
up and left there. 

As it was cold, I collected quite a pile of wood and lay 
down on a board against the side of the building, not hav- 
ing any blanket to cover me, with my head to the fire, that I 
might look after it, which is not the Indian rule. But as it 
grew colder toward midnight, I at length encased myself 
completely in boards, managing even to put aboard on top 
of me with a large stone on it, to keep it down, and so slept 
comfortably. I was reminded, it is true, of the Irish chil- 
dren, who inquired what their neighbors did who had no 
door to put over them in winter nights as they had ; but I 
am convinced that there was nothing very strange in the in- 
quiry. Those who have never tried it can have no idea how 
far a door, which keeps the single blanket down, may go to- 
ward making one comfortable. We are constituted a good 
deal like chickens, which taken from the hen, and put in a 
basket of cotton in the chimney corner, will often peep till 
they die nevertheless, but if you put in a book, or anything 
heavy, which will press down the cotton, and feel like the 
hen, they go to sleep directly. My only companions were 
the mice, which came to pick up the crumbs that had been 
left in those scraps of paper ; still, as everywhere, pension- 
ers on man, and not unwisely improving this elevated tract 
for their habitation. They nibbled what was for them ; I 
nibbled what was for me. Once or twice in the night, when 
I looked up, I saw a white cloud drifting through the win- 
dows, and filling the whole upper story. 

This observatory was a building of considerable size, 
erected by the students of Williams College, whose build- 
ings might be seen by daylight gleaming far down in the 
valley. It would really be no small advantage if every 
college were thus located at the base of a mountain, as 
good at least as one well-endowed professorship. It were 
as well to be educated in the shadow of a mountain as in 



I 68 A WEEK. 

more classical shades. Some will remember, no doubt, not 
only that they went to the college, but that they went to the 
mountain. Every visit to its summit would, as it were, 
generalize the particular information gained below, and sub- 
ject it to more catholic tests. 

I was up early and perched upon the top of this tower to 
see the daybreak, for some time reading the names that had 
been engraved there before I could distinguish more distant 
objects. An " untanieable fly " buzzed at my elbow with 
the same nonchalance as on a molasses hogshead at the end 
of Long Wharf. Even there I must attend to his stale hum- 
drum. But now I come to the pith of this long digression. 
As the light increased I discovered around me an ocean of 
■mist, which reached up by chance exactly to the base of the 
tower, and shut out every vestige of the earth, while I was 
left floating on this fragment of the wreck of a world, on 
my carved plank in cloudland ; a situation which required 
no aid from the imagination to render it impressive. As 
the light in the east steadily increased, it revealed to me 
more clearly the new world into which I had risen in the 
night, the new /^rrrtiy^/v//^^/, perchance, of my future life. 
There was not a crevice left through which the trivial places 
we name Massachusetts, or "Vermont, or New York, could 
be seen, while I still inhaled the clear atmosphere of a July 
morning, — if it were July there. All around beneath me 
was spread for a hundred miles on every side, as far as the 
eye could reach, an undulating country of clouds, answer- 
ing in the varied swell of its surface to the terrestrial world 
it veiled. It was such a country as we might see in dreams, 
with all the delights of paradise. There were immense 
snowy pastures apparently smooth shaven and firm, and 
shady vales between the vaporous mountains, and far in the 
horizon I could see where some luxurious misty timber 
jutted into the prairie, and trace the windings of a water 
course, some unimagined Amazon or Orinoco, by the misty 



TUESDAY. 169 

trees on its brink. As there was wanting the symbol, so 
there was not the substance of impurity, no spot nor stain. 
It was a favor for which to be forever silent to be shown 
this vision. The earth beneath had become such a flitting 
thing of lights and shadows as the clouds had been before. 
It was not merely veiled to me, but it had passed away like 
the phantom of a shadow, (JKiai ovap, and this new plat- 
form was gained. As I had climbed above storm and cloud, 
so by successive days' journeys I might reach the region of 
eternal day beyond the tapering shadow of the earth ; aye, 

Heaven itself shall slide, 
And roll away, like melting stars that glide 
Along their oily threads. 

But when its own sun began to rise on this pure world, I 
found myself a dweller in the dazzling halls of Aurora, into 
which poets have had but a partial glance over the eastern 
hills, — drifting amid the saffron-colored clouds, and playing 
with the rosy fingers of the Dawn, in the very path of the 
Sun's chariot, and sprinkled with its dewy dust, enjoying 
the benignant smile, and near at hand the far-darting glances 
of the god. The inhabitants of earth behold commonly 
but the dark and shadowy under-side of heaven's pavement ; 
it is only when seen at a favorable angle in the horizon, 
morning or evening, that some faint streaks of the rich lin- 
ing of the clouds are revealed. But my muse would fail to 
convey an impression of the gorgeous tapestry by which I 
was surrounded, such as men see faintly reflected afar off 
in the chambers of the east. Here, as on earth, I saw the 
gracious god 

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, .... 
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. 

But never here did " Heaven's sun " stain himself. But 
alas, owing as I think to some unworthiness in myself, my 
private sun did stain himself, and 



170 A WEEK. 

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 
With ugly wrack on his celestial face, — 

for before the god had reached the zenith the heavenly 
pavement rose and embraced my wavering virtue, or rather 
I sank down again into that " forlorn world," from which 
the celestial Sun had hid his visage. 

How may a worm, that crawls along the dust. 
Clamber the azure mountains, thrown so high, 
And fetch from thence thy fair idea just. 
That in those sunny courts doth hidden lie, 
Cloth'd with such light, as blinds the angel's eye ? 
How may weak mortal ever hope to file 
His unsmooth tongue, and his deprostrate style ? 
O, raise thou from his corse thy now entombed exile ! 

In the preceding evening I had seen the summits of new 
and yet higher mountains, the Catskills, by which I might 
hope to climb to heaven again, and had set my compass for 
a fair lake in the southwest, which lay in my way, for which 
I now steered, descending the mountain by my own route, 
on the side opposite to that by which I had ascended, and 
soon found myself in the region of cloud and drizzling rain, 
and the inhabitants affirmed that it had been a cloudy and 
drizzling day wholly. 

But now we must make haste back before the fog dis- 
perses to the blithe Merrimac water. 

Since that first " away! away! " 

Many a lengthy reach we've rowed. 

Still the sparrow on the spray 

Hastes to usher in the day 

With her simple stanza'd ode. 

We passed a canal-boat before sunrise, groping its way to 
the seaboard, and though we could not see it on account of 
the fog, the few dull, thumping, stertorous sounds which we 
heard, impressed us with a sense of weight and irresistible 



TUESDAY. 171 

motion. One little rill of commerce already awake on this 
distant New Hampshire river. The fog, as it required 
more skill in the steering, enhanced the interest of our early 
voyage, and made the river seem indefinitely broad. A 
slight mist, through which objects are faintly visible, has the 
effect of expandmg even ordinary streams, by a singular 
mirage, into arms of the sea or inland lakes. In the present 
instance it was even fragrant and invigorating, and we en- 
joyed it as a sort of earlier sunshine, or dewy and embryo 
light. 

Low-anchored cloud, 

Newfoundland air, 

Fountainliead and source of rivers, 

Dew cloth, dream drapery, 

And napkin spread by fays ; 

Drifting meadow of the air, 

Where bloom the daisied banks and violets, 

And in whose fenny labyrinth 

The bittern booms and heron wades ; 

Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers, 

Bear only perfumes and the scent 

Of healing herbs to just men's fields. 

The same pleasant and observant historian whom we 
quoted above says, that " In the mountainous parts of the 
country, the ascent of vapors, and their formation into 
clouds, is a curious and entertaining object. The vapors 
are seen rising in small columns like smoke from many 
chimneys. When risen to a certaui height, they spread, 
meet, condense, and are attracted to the mountains, where 
they either distill in gentle dews, and replenish the springs, 
or descend in showers, accompanied with thunder. After 
short intermissions, the process is repeated many times in 
the course of a summer day, affording to travelers a lively 
illustration of what is observed in the book of Job, * They 
are wet with the showers of the mountains.' " 



172 A WEEK. 

Fogs and clouds which conceal the overshadowing moun- 
tains lend the breadth of the plains to mountain vales. 
Even a small featured country acquires some grandeur in 
stormy weather when clouds are seen drifting between the 
beholder and the neighboring hills. When, in traveling 
toward Haverhill through Hampstead in this State, on the 
height of land between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua or 
the sea, you commence the descent eastward, the view 
toward the coast is so distant and unexpected, though the 
sea is invisible, that you at first suppose the unobstructed 
atmosphere to be a fog in the lowlands concealing hills of 
corresponding elevation to that you are upon ; but it is the 
mist of prejudice alone, which the winds will not disperse. 
The most stupendous scenery ceases to be sublime when it 
becomes distinct, or in other words limited, and the imagi- 
nation is no longer encouraged to exaggerate it. The actual 
height and breadth of a mountain or a waterfall are always 
ridiculously small ; they are the imagined only that content 
us. Nature is not made after such a fashion as we would 
have her. We piously exaggerate her wonders as the 
scenery around our home. 

Such wa;; the heaviness of the dews along this river, that 
we were generally obliged to leave our tent spread over the 
bows of the boat till the sun had dried it, to avoid mildew. 
We passed the mouth of Penichook Brook, a wild salmon 
stream, in the fog without seeing it. At length the sun's 
rays struggled through the mist and showed us the pines on 
shore dripping with dew, and springs trickling from the 
moist banks, 

And now the taller sons, whom Titan warms, 
Of unshorn mountains blown with easy winds, 
Dandle the morning's childhood in their arms, 
And, if they chanced to slip the prouder pines, 
The under corylets did catch their shines, 
To gild their leaves. 



TUESDAY. 



173 



We rowed for some hours between glistening banks be- 
fore the sun had dried the grass and leaves, or the day 
had established its character. Its serenit}^ at last seemed 
the more profound and secure for the denseness of the 
morning's fog. The river became swifter, and the scenery 
more pleasing than before. The ^anks were steep and 
clayey for the most part, and trickling with water, and 
where a spring oozed out a few feet above the river, the 
boatmen had cut a trough out of a slab with their axes, and 
placed it so as to receive the water and fill their jugs con- 
veniently. Sometimes this purer and cooler water, bursting 
out from under a pine or a rock, was collected into a basin 
close to the edge, of, and level with the river, a fountain- 
head of the jMerrimac. So near along life's stream are the 
fountains of innocence and youth making fertile its sandy 
margin ; and the voyageur will do well to replenish his 
vessels often at these uncontaminated sources. Some 
youthful spring, perchance, still empties with tinkling music 
into the oldest river, even when it is falling into the sea, and 
we imagine that its music is distinguished by the river gods 
from the general lapse of the stream, and falls sweeter on 
their ears in proportion as it is nearer to the ocean. As 
the evaporations of the river feed thus these unsuspected 
springs which filter through its banks, so, perchance, our 
aspirations fall back again in springs on the margin of life's 
stream to refresh and purify it. The yellow and tepid river 
may float his scow, and cheer his eye with its reflections and 
its ripples, but the boatman quenches his thirst at this small 
rill alone. It is this purer and cooler element that chiefly 
sustains his life. The race will long survive that is thus 
discreet. 

Our course this morning lay between the territories of 
Merrimac, on the west, and Litchfield, once called Brenton's 
Farm, on the east, which townships were anciently the 
Indian Naticook. Brenton was a fur trade^r among the 



174 A WKKK. 

Indians, and these lands were granted to him in 1656. The 
later township contains about five hundred inhabitants, of 
whom, however, we saw none, and but few of their dwell- 
ings. Being on the river, whose banks are always high and 
generally conceal the few houses, the country appeared 
much more wild and primitive than to the traveler on the 
neighboring roads. The river is by far the most attractive 
highway, and those boatmen who have spent twenty or 
twenty-five years on it must have had a much fairer, more 
wild and memorable experience than the dusty and jarring 
one of the teamster, who has driven, during the same time, 
on the roads which run parallel with the stream. As one 
ascends the Merrimac, he rarely sees a village, but, for the 
most part, alternate wood and pasture lands, and sometimes 
a field of corn or potatoes, of rye or oats or English grass, 
with a few straggling apple trees, and, at still longer in- 
tervals, a farmer's house. The soil, excepting the best of 
the interval, is commonly as light and sandy as a patriot 
could desire. Sometimes this forenoon the country ap- 
peared in its primitive state, and as if the Indian still in- 
habited it; and again, as if many free new settlers occupied 
it, their slight fences straggling down to the water's edge, 
and the barking of dogs, and even the prattle of children, 
were heard, and smoke was seen to go up from some hearth- 
stone, and the banks were divided into patches of pasture, 
mowing, tillage, and woodland. But when the river spread 
out broader, with an uninhabited islet, or a long low sandy 
shore which ran on single and devious, not answering to its 
opposite, but far off as if it were seashore or single coast, 
and the land no longer nursed the river in its bosom, but 
they conversed as equals, the rustling leaves with rippling 
waves, and few fences were seen, but high oak woods on 
one side, and large herds of cattle, and all tracks seemed 
a point to one center, behind some statelier grove,— we 
imagined that the river flowed through an extensive manor, 



TUESDAY. 175 

and that the few inhabitants were retainers to a lord, and a 
fedual state of things prevailed. 

When there was a suitable reach, we caught sight of the 
Goffstown mountain, the Indian Uncannunuc, rising before 
us on the west side. It was a calm and beautiful day, with 
only a slight zephyr to ripple the surface of the water, and 
rustle the woods on shore, and just warmth enough to prove 
the kindly disposition of Nature to her children. With 
buoyant spirits and vigorous impulses we tossed our boat 
rapidly along into the very middle of this forenoon. The 
fish-hawk sailed and screamed overhead. The chipping, or 
striped squrrel, Sciui us striatus, sat upon the end of some 
Virginia fence or rider reaching over the stream, twirling a 
green nut with one paw, as in a lathe, while the other held 
it fast against its incisors as chisels. Like an independent 
russet leaf, with a will of its own, rustling whither it could ; 
now under the fence, now over it, now peeping at the 
voyageurs through a crack with only its tail visible, now at 
its lunch deep in the toothsome kernel, and now a rod off 
playing at hide-and-seek with the nut stowed away in its 
chops, where were half a dozen more beside, extending its 
cheeks to a ludicrous breadth. As if it were devising 
through what safe valve of frisk or somersualt to let its super- 
fluous life escape ; the stream passing harmlessly off, even 
while it sits, in constant electric flashes through its tail ; 
and now with a chuckling squeak it dives inio the root of a 
hazel, and we see no more of it. Or the larger red squirrel 
or chickaree, sometimes called the Hudson Bay squirrel, 
Striurus Hudsoitius, gave warning of our approach by that 
peculiar alarum of his, like the winding up of some strong 
clock, in the top of a pine tree, and dodged behind its stem 
or leaped from tree to tree, with such caution and adroit- 
ness as if much depended on the fidelity of his scout, run- 
ning along the white pine boughs sometimes twenty rods by 
our side, with such speed, and by such unerring routes as if 



176 A WEEK. 

it were some well-worn familiar path to him : and presently, 
when we have passed, he returns to his work of cutting off 
the pine cones, and letting them fall to the ground. 

Wi' passed Cromwell's Falls — the first we met with on this 
river — this forenoon, by means of locks, without using our 
wheels. These falls are the Nesenkeag of the Indians. 
Great Nesenkeag Stream comes in on the right just above, 
and Little Nesenkeag some distance below, both in Litchfield. 
We read in the gazetteer, under the head of Merrimac, that 
" The first house in this town was erected on tlie margin of 
the river [soon after 1665] for a house of traffic with the 
Lidians. For some time one Cromwell carried on a lucra- 
tive trade with them, weighing their furs with his foot, till, 
enraged at his supposed or real deception, they formed the 
resolution to murder him. This intention being communi- 
cated to Cromwell, he buried his wealth and made his 
escape. Within a few hours after his flight, a party of the 
Penacook tribe arrived, and not finding the object of their 
resentment, burnt his habitation." Upon the top of the high 
bank here, close to the river, was still to be seen his cellar, 
now overgrown v/ith trees. It was a convenient spot for 
such a traffic, at the foot of the first falls above the settle- 
ments, and commanding a pleasant view up the river, where 
he could see the Indians coming down with their furs. The 
lock-man told us that his shovel and tongs had been plowed 
up here, and also a stone with his name on it. But we will 
not vouch for the truth of this story. These were the traces 
of the white trader. On the opposite bank, where it jutted 
over the stream cape-wise, we picked up four arrow-heads 
and a small Indian tool made of stone, as soon as we had 
climbed it, where plainly there had once stood a wigwam 
of the Indians with whom Cromwell traded, and who fished 
and hunted here before he came. 

As usual the gossips have not been silent respecting 
Cromwell's buried wealth, and it is said that some years ago 



TUESDAY. 177 

a farmer's plow, not far from here, slid over a flat stone 
which emitted a hollow sound, and on its being raised a 
sum of money was found. The lock-man told us another 
similar story about a farmer in a neighboring town, who had 
been a poor man, but who suddenly bought a good farm, 
and was well to do in the world ; and, when he was ques- 
tioned, did not give a satisfactory account of the matter; — 
how few, alas, could ! This caused his hired man to re- 
member, that one day as they were plowing together the 
plow struck something, and his employer going back to 
look, concluded not to go round again, saying that the sky 
looked rather lowering, and so put up his team. The like 
urgency has caused many things to be remembered which 
never transpired. The truth is, there is money buried 
everywhere, and you have only to go work to find it. 

Not far from these falls stands an oak tree on the interval, 
about a quarter of a mile from the river, on the farm of a 
Mr. Lund, which was pointed out to us as the spot where 
French, the leader of the party which went in pursuit of the 
Indians from Dunstable, was killed. Farwell dodged them 
in the thick woods near. It did not look as if men had ever 
had to run for their lives on this now open and peaceful 
interval. 

Here, too, was another extensive desert by the side of the 
road in Litchfield, visible from the bank of the river. The 
sand was blown off in some places to the depth of ten or 
twelve feet, leaving small grotesque hillocks of that height 
where there was a clump of bushes firmly rooted. Thirty 
or forty years ago, as we were told, it was a sheep pasture, 
but the sheep being worried by the fleas, began to paw the 
ground, till they broke the sod, and so the sand began to 
blow, till now it had extended over forty or fifty acres. 
This evil might easily have been remedied at first, by spread- 
ing birches with their leaves on over the sand, and fastening 
them down with stakes, to break the wind. The fleas bit 



lyS A WEEK. 

the sheep, and the sheep bit the ground, and the sore had 
spread to this extent. It is astonishing what a great sore a 
little scratch breedeth. Who knows but Sahara, where cara- 
vans and cities are buried, began with the bite of an African 
flea. This poor globe, how it must itch in many places ! 
Will no god be kind enough to spread a salve of birches 
over its sores ? Here, too, we noticed where the Indians 
had gathered a heap of stones, perhaps for their council 
fire, which by their weight having prevented the sand under 
them from blowing away, were left on the summit of a 
mound. They told us that arrow-heads, and also bullets of 
lead and iron, had been found here. We noticed several 
other sandy tracts in our voyage ; and the course of the 
Merrimac can be traced from the nearest mountain by its 
yellow sandbanks, though the river itself is for the most 
part invisible. Lawsuits, as we hear, have in some cases 
grown out of these causes. Railroads have been made 
through certain irritable districts, breaking their sod, and so 
have set the sand to blowing, till it has converted fertile farms 
into deserts, and the company has had to pay the damages. 
This sand seemed to us the connecting link between land 
and water. It was a kind of water on which you could 
walk, and you could see the ripple marks on its surface, 
produced by the winds, precisely like those at the bottom of 
a brook or lake. We had read that Mussulmans are permit- 
ted by the Koran to perform their ablutions in sand when 
they cannot get water, a necessary indulgence in Arabia, 
and we now understood the propriety of this provision. 

Plum Island, at the mouth of this river, to whose forma- 
tion, perhaps, these very banks have sent their contribution, 
is a similar desert of drifting sand, of various (colors, 
blown inta graceful curves by the wind. It is a mere sand- 
bar exposed, stretching nine miles parallel to the coast, 
and, exclusive of the marsh on the inside, rarely more than 



TUESDAY. 179 

half a mile wide. There are but half a dozen houses on it, 
and it is ahnost without a tree, or a sod, or any green thing 
with which a countryman is familiar. The thin vegetation 
stands half buried in sand, as in drifting snow. The only 
shrub, the beach plum, which gives the island its name, 
grows but a few feet high ; but this is so abundant that 
parties of a hundred at once come from the main land and 
down the Merrimac in September, and pitch their tents, 
and gather the plums, which are good to eat raw and to 
preserve. The graceful and delicate beach pea, too, grows 
abundantly amid the sand ; and several strange moss-like 
and succulent plants. The island for its whole length is 
scolloped into low hills, not more than twenty feet high, by 
the wind, and excepting a faint trail on the edge of the 
marsh, is as trackless as Sahara. There are dreary bluffs 
of sand and valleys plowed by the wind, where you might 
e.xpect to discover the bones of a caravan. Schooners come 
from Boston to load with the sand for masons' uses, and in 
a few hours the wind obliterates all traces of their work. 
Yet you have only to dig a foot or two anywhere to come 
to fresh water ; and you are surprised to learn that wood- 
chucks abound here, and foxes are found, though you see 
not where they can burrow or hide themselves. I have 
walked down the whole length of its broad beach at low 
tide, at which time alone you can find a firm ground to 
walk on, and probably Massachusetts does not furnish a 
more grand and dreary walk. On the sea side there are 
only a distant sail and a few coots to break the grand 
monotony. A solitary stake stuck up, or a sharper sand- 
hill than usual, is remarkable as a landmark for miles ; 
while for music you hear only the ceaseless sound of the 
surf, and the dreary peep of the beach birds. 

There were several canal-boats at Cromwell's Falls, pass- 
ing through the locks, for which we waited. In the forward 



l8o A WEEK. 

part of one stood a brawny New Hampshire man, leaning on 
his pole, bareheaded and in shirt and trousers only, a rude 
Apollo of a man, coming down from that " vast uplandish 
country " to the main ; of nameless age, with fiaxen hair, and 
vigorous, weather-bleached countenance, in whose wrinkles 
the sun still lodged, as little touched by the heats and frosts 
and withering cares of life as a mountain maple ; an un- 
dressed, unkempt, uncivil man, with whom we parleyed a 
while, and parted not without a sincere interest in one an- 
other. His humanity was genuine and instinctive, and his 
rudeness only a manner. He inquired, just as we were pass- 
ing out of earshot, if we had killed anything, and we shouted 
after him that we had shot a buoy, and could see him for a 
long while scratching his head in vain, to know if he had 
heard aright. 

There is reason in the distinction of civil and uncivil. 
The manners are sometimes so rough a rind, that we doubt 
whether they cover any core or sap-wood at all. We some- 
times meet uncivil men, children of Amazons, who dwell by 
mountain paths, and are said to be inhospitable to strangers ; 
whose salutation is as rude as the grasp of their brawny hands, 
and who deal with men as unceremoniously as they are wont 
to deal with the elements. They need only to extend their 
clearings, and let in more sunlight, to seek out the southern 
slopes of the hills, from which they may look down on the 
civil plain or ocean, and temper their diet duly with the 
cereal fruits, consuming less wild meat and acorns, to be- 
come like the inhabitants of cities. A true politeness does 
not result from any hasty and artificial polishing, it is true, 
but grows naturally in characters of the right grain and 
quality, through a long fronting of men and events, and 
rubbing on good and bad fortune. Perhaps I can tell a tale 
to the purpose while the lock is filling, — for our voyage this 
forenoon funishes bat few incidents of importance. 



TUESDAY. lOI 

Early one summer morning I had left the shores of the 
Connecticut, and for the livelong day traveled up the bank 
of a river, which came in from the west ; now looking 
down on the stream, foaming and rippling through the for- 
est a mile off, from the hills over which the road led, and 
now sitting on its rocky brink and dipping my feet in its 
rapids, or bathing adventurously in mid-channel. The hills 
grew more and more frequent, and gradually swelled into 
mountains as I advanced, hemming in the course of the river, 
so that at last I could not see where it came from, and was 
at liberty to imagine the most wonderful meanderings and 
descents. At noon I slept on the grass in the shade of a 
maple, where the river had found a broader channel than 
usual, and was spread out shallow, with frequent sand-bars 
exposed. In the names of the towns 1 recognized some 
which I had long ago read on teamsters' wagons, that had 
come from far up country, quiet, uplandish towns, of moun- 
tainous fame. I walked along musing, and enchanted by 
rows of sugar-maples, through the small and uninquisitive 
villages, and sometimes was pleased with the sight of a boat 
drawn up on a sand-bar, where there appeared no inhabi- 
tants to use it. It seemed, however, as essential to the 
river as a fish, and to lend a certain dignity to it. It was 
like the trout of mountain streams to the fishes of the sea, 
or like the young of the land crab born far in the interior, 
who have never yet heard the sound of the ocean's surf. The 
hills approached nearer and nearer to the stream, until at 
last they closed behind me, and I found myself just before 
nightfall in a romantic and retired valley, about half a mile 
in length, and barely wide enough for the stream at its 
bottom. I thought that there could be no finer site for a 
cottage among mountains. You could anywhere run across 
the stream on the rocks, and its constant murmuring would 
quiet the passions of mankind forever. Suddenly the road, 
which seemed aiming for the mountain side, turned short to 



l82 A WEEK. 

the left, and another valley opened, concealing the former', 
and of the same character with it. It was the most remark- 
able and pleasing scenery I had ever seen. I found here a 
few mild and hospitable inhabitants, who, as the day was not 
quite spent, and I was anxious to improve the light, directed 
me four or five miles further on my way to the dwelling of a 
man whose name was Rice, who occupied the last and high- 
est of the valleys that lay in my path, and who,, they said, 
was a rather rude and uncivil man. But, "What is a 
foreign country to those who have science ? Who is a 
stranger to those who have the habit of speaking kindly ? " 
At length, as the sun was setting behind the mountains 
in a still darker and more solitary vale, I reached the dwell- 
ing of this man. Except for the narrowness of the plain, 
and that the stones were solid granite, it was the counter- 
part of that retreat to which Belphoebe bore the wounded 
Timias — 

In a pleasant glade, 
With mountains round about environed, 
And mighty woods, which did the valley shade, 
And like a stately theater it made. 
Spreading itself into a spacious plain ; 
And in the midst a little river played 
Amongst the pumy stones, which seemed to plain, 
With gentle murmur, that his course they did restrain. 

I observed, as I drew near, that he was not so rude as I 
had anticipated, for he kept many cattle, and dogs to watch 
them, and I saw where he had made maple sugar on the 
sides of the mountains, and above all distinguished the 
voices of children mingling with the murmur of the torrent 
before the door. As I passed his stable I met one whom I 
supposed to be a hired man, attending to his cattle, and in- 
quired if they entertained travelers at that house. " Some- 
times we do," he answered, gruffly, and immediately went 
to the farthest stall from me, and I perceived that it was 



TUliSDAY. 1S3 

Rice himself whom I had addressed. But pardoning this 
incivility to the wildness of the scenery, I bent my steps 
to the house. There was no sign-post before it, nor any of 
the usual invitations to the traveler, though I saw by the 
road that many went and came there, but the owner's name 
only was fastened to tlie outside, a sort of implied and sul- 
len invitation, as I thought. I passed from room to room 
without meeting any one, till I came to what seemed the 
guests' apartment, which was neat, and even had an air of 
refinement about it, and I was glad to find a map against 
the wall which would direct me on my journey on the mor- 
row. At length I heard a step in a distant apartment, 
which was the first I had entered, and went to see if the 
landlord had come in ; but it proved to be only a child, 
one of those whose voices I had heard, probably his son, 
and between him and me stood in the door- way a large 
watch-dog, which growled at me, and looked as if he would 
presently spring, but the boy did not speak to him ; and 
when I asked for a glass of water, he briefly said, " It runs 
in the corner." So I took a rang from the counter and 
went out of doors, and searched round the corner of the 
house, but could find neither well nor spring, nor any water 
but the stream which ran all along the front. I came back, 
therefore, and setting down the mug, asked the child if the 
stream was good to drink ; whereupon he seized the mug, 
and going to the corner of the room, where a cool spring 
which issued from the mountain behind trickled through a 
pipe into the apartment, filled it, and drank, and gave it 
to me empty again, and calling to the dog, rushed out of 
doors. Ere long some of the hired men made their appear- 
ance, and drank at the spring, and lazily washed themselves 
and combed their hair in silence, and some sat down as if 
weary, and fell asleep in their seats. But all the while I saw 
no women, though I sometimes heard a bustle in that part 
of the house from which the spring came. 



184 -A WEEK. 

At length Rice himself came in, for it was now dark, with 
an ox whip in his hand, breathing hard, and he too soon 
settled down into his seat not far from me, as if now that 
his day's work was done he had no further to travel, but 
only to digest his supper at his leisure. When 1 asked him 
if he could give me a bed, he said there was one ready, in 
such a tone as implied that 1 ought to have known it, and 
the less said about that the better. So far so good. And 
yet he continued to look at me as if he would fain have me 
say something further like a traveler. I remarked that it 
was a wild and rugged country he inhabited, and worth 
coming many miles to see. " Not so very rough, neither," 
said he, and he appealed to his men to bear witness to the 
breadth and smoothness of his fields, which consisted in all 
of one small interval, and to the size of his crops ; " and if we 
have some hills," added he, " there's no better pasturage 
anywhere." I then asked if this place was the one I had 
heard of, calling it by a name 1 had seen on the map, or if 
it was a certain other ; and he answered, grufifly, that it was 
neither the one nor the other ; that he had settled it and 
cultivated it, and made it what it was, and I could know 
nothing about it. Observing some guns and other imple- 
ments of hunting hanging on brackets around tire room, and 
his hounds now sleeping on the floor, I took occasion to 
change the discourse, inquiring if there was much game in 
that country, and he answered this question more graciously, 
having some glimmering of my drift ; but when I inquired 
if there were any bears, he answered impatiently, that he 
was no more in danger of losing his sheep than his neigh- 
bors ; he had tamed and civilized that region. After a 
pause, thinking of my journey on the morrow, and the few 
hours of daylight in that hollow and mountainous country, 
which would require me to be on my way betimes, I re- 
marked that the day must be shorter by an hour there than 
on the neighboring plains ; at which he gruffly asked what 



TUESDAY. 185 

I knew about it, and affirmed that he had as much dayHght 
as his neighbors ; he ventured to say the days were longer 
there than where I lived, as I should find if I stayed ; that 
in some way, I could not be expected to understand 
how, the sun came over the mountains half an hour earlier, 
and stayed half an hour later there than on the neighbor- 
ing plains. And more of like sort he said. He was, in- 
deed, as rude as a fabled satyr. But I suifered him to pass 
for what he was, for why should I quarrel with nature ? and 
was even pleased at the discovery of such a singular natural 
phenomenon. I dealt with him as if to me all manners 
were indifferent, and he had a sweet wild way with him. I 
would not question nature, and I would rather have him as 
he was than as I would have him. For I had come up here 
not for sympathy, or kindness, or society, but for novelty 
and adventure, and to see what nature had produced here. 
I therefore did not repel his rudeness, but quite innocently 
welcomed it all, and knew how to appreciate it, as if I were 
reading in an old drama a part well sustained. He was 
indeed a coarse and sensual man, and, as I have said, un- 
civil, but he had his just quarrel with nature and mankind, 
I have no doubt, only he had no artificial covering to his 
ill humors. He was earthy enough, but yet there was good 
soil in him, and even a long-suffering Saxon probity at bot- 
tom. If you could represent the case to him, he would not 
let the race die out in him, like a red Indian. 

At length I told him that he was a fortunate man, and I 
trusted that he was grateful for .so much light, and rising, 
said I would take a lamp, and that I would pay him then 
for my lodging, for I expected to recommence my journey, 
even as early as the sun rose in his country ; but he 
answered in haste, and this time civilly, that I should not 
fail to find some of his household stirring, however early, 
for they were no sluggards, and I could take my breakfast 
with them before I started if I chose ; and as he lighted the 



l86 A WEEK. 

lamp I detected a gleam of true hospitality and ancient 
civility, a beam of pure and even gentle humanity from his 
bleared and moist eyes. It was a look more intimate with 
me, and more explanatory, than any words of his could have 
been if he had tried to his dying day. It was more signifi- 
cant than any Rice of those [)arts could even comprehend, 
and long anticipated this man's culture, — a glance of his 
pure genius, which did not much enlighten him, but did 
impress and rule him for the moment, and faintly constrain 
his voice and manner. He cheerfully led the way to my 
apartment, stepping over the limbs of his men who were 
asleep on the floor in an intervening chamber, and showed 
me a clean and comfortable bed. For many pleasant hours, 
after the household was asleep, I sat at the open window, 
for it was a sultry night, and heard the little river 

Amongst the pumy stones, which seemed to plain 
With gentle murmur that his course they did restrain. 

But I arose as usual by starlight the next morning, before 
my host, or his men, or even his dogs, were awake ; and 
having left a ninepence on the counter, was already half 
way over the mountain with the sun, before they had broken 
their fast. 

Before I had left the country of my host, while the first 
rays of the sun slanted over the mountains, as I stopped by 
the wayside to gather some raspberries, a very old man, not 
far from a hundred, came along with a milking pail in his 
hand, and turning aside began to pluck the berries near 

me — 

His reverend locks 
In comelye curies did wave ; 
And on his aged temples grew 
The blossoms of the grave. 

But when I inquired the way, he answered in a low, rough 
voice, without looking up or seeming to regard my presence, 



TUESDAY. 187 

which I imputed to his years; and presently, muttering to 
himself, he proceeded to collect his cows in a neighboring 
pasture ; and when he had again returned near to the way- 
side, he suddenly stopped, while his cows went on before, 
and, uncovering his head, prayed aloud in the cool morning 
air, as if he had forgotten this exercise before, for his daily 
bread, and also that He who letteth his rain fall on the just 
and on the unjust, and without whom not a sparrow falleth 
to the ground, would not neglect the stranger (meaning 
me), and with even more direct and personal applications, 
though mainly according to the long established formula 
common to lowlanders and the inhabitants of mountains. 
When he had done praying, I made bold to ask him if he 
had any cheese in his hut which he would sell me, but he 
answered without looking up, and in the same low and 
repulsive voice as before, that they did not make any, and 
went to milking. It is written, " The stranger who turneth 
away from a house with disappointed hopes, leaveth there 
his own offenses, and departeth, taking with him all the 
good actions of the owner." 

Being now fairly in the stream of this week's commerce, 
we began to meet with boats more frequently, and hailed 
them from time to time with the freedom of sailors. The 
boatmen appeared to lead an easy and contented life, and 
we thought that we should prefer their employment our- 
selves to many professions which are much more sought 
after. They suggested how few circumstances are neces- 
sary to the well-being and serenity of man, how indifferent 
all employments are, and that any may seem noble and 
poetic to the eyes of meii, if pursued with sufficient buoy- 
ancy and freedom. With liberty and pleasant weather, the 
simplest occupation, any unquestioned country mode of life 
which detains us in the open air, is alluring. The man who 
picks peas steadily for a living is more than respectable, he is 



l88 A WEEK. 

even envied by liis shop-worn neighbors. We are as happy 
as the birds vvlien our Good Genius permits us to pursue 
any out-door work without a sense of dissipation. Our pen- 
knife glitters in the sun ; our voice is echoed by yonder 
wood ; if an oar drops, we are fain to let it drop again. 

The canal-boat is of very simi)le construction, requiring 
but little ship timber, and, as we were told, costs about two 
hundred dollars. They are managed by two men. In 
ascending the stream they use poles fourteen or fifteen feet 
long, shod with iron, walking about one third the length of 
the boat from the forward end. Going down, they com- 
monly keep in the middle of the steam, using an oar at each 
end ; or if the wind is favorable they raise their broad sail, 
and have only to steer. They commonly carry down bricks 
or wood, — fifteen or sixteen thousand bricks, and as many 
cords of wood, at a time, — and bring back stores for the 
country, consuming two or three days each way between 
Concord and Charlestown. They sometimes pile the wood 
so as to leave a shelter in one part where they may retire 
from the rain. One can hardly imagine a more healthful 
employment, or one more favorable to contemplation and 
the observation of nature. Unlike the mariner, they have 
the constantly varying panorama of the shore to relieve the 
monotony of their labor, and it seemed to us that as they 
thus glided noiselessly from town to town, with all their 
furniture about them, for their very homestead is 
movable, they could comment on the character of the 
inhabitants with greater advantage and security to them- 
selves than the traveler in a coach, who would be un- 
able to indulge in such broadsides of wit and humor in so 
small a vessel, for fear of the recoil. They are not subject 
to great exposure, like the lumberers of Maine, in any 
weather, but inhale the healthfulest breezes, being slightly 
encumbered with clothing, frequently with the head and feet 
bare. When we met them at noon as they were leisurely 



TUESDAY. 



liJp 



descending the stream, their busy commerce did not look 
like toil, but rather like some ancient Oriental game still 
played on a large scale, as the game of chess, for instance, 
handed down to this generation. From morning till night, 
unless the wind is so fair that his single sail will suffice 
without other labor than steering, the boatman walks back- 
ward and forward on the side of his boat, now stooping 
with his shoulder to the pole, then drawing it back slowly 
to set it again, meanwhile moving steadily forward through 
an endless valley and an ever-changing scenery, now dis- 
tinguishing his course for a mile or two, and now shut in by 
a sudden turn of the river in a small woodland lake. All 
the phenomena which surround him are simple and grand, 
and there is something impressive, even majestic, in the very 
motion he causes, which will naturally be communicated to 
his own character, and he feels the slow, irresistible move- 
ment under him with pride, as if it were his own energy. 

The news spread like wildfire among us youths, when 
formerly, once in a year or two, one of these boats came up 
the Concord River, and was seen stealing mysteriously 
through the meadows and past the village. It came and 
departed as silently as a cloud, without noise or dust, and 
was witnessed by few. One summer day this huge traveler 
might be seen moored at some meadow's wharf, and an- 
other summer day it was not there. Where precisely it 
came from, or who these men were who knew the rocks and 
soundings better than we who bathed there, we could never 
tell. We knew some river's bay only, but they took rivers 
from end to end. They were a sort of fabulous river-men 
to us. It was inconceivable by what sort of mediation 
any mere landsman could hold communication with them. 
Would they heave to to gratify his wishes ? No, it was favor 
enough to know faintly of their destination, or the time of 
their possible return. I have seen them in the summer, 
when the stream ran low, mowing the weeds in mid-channel, 



190 A WEEK. 

and with hayer's jests cutting broad swathes in three feet of 
water, that they might malvc a passage for their scow, while. 
the grass in long windrows was carried down the stream, 
undried by the rarest hay weather. We used to admire un- 
weariedly how their vessel would float, like a huge chip, 
sustaining so many casks of lime, and thousands of bricks, 
and such heaps of iron ore, with wheel-barrows aboard, — 
and that when we stepped on it, it did not yield to the 
pressure of our feet. It gave us confidence in the prev- 
alence of the law of buoyanc)^, and we imagined to what 
infinite uses it might be put. The men appeared to lead a 
kind of life on it, and it was whispered that they slept aboard. 
Some affirmed that it carried sail, and that such winds blew 
here as filled the sails of vessels on the ocean ; which 
again others much doubted. They had been seen to sail 
across our Fair-Haven bay by lucky fishers who were out, 
but unfortunately others were not there to see. We might 
then say that our river was navigable, — why not? In after 
years I read in print with little satisfaction, that it was 
thought by some that with a little expense in removing 
rocks and deepening the channel, " there might be a profit- 
able inland navigation." / then lived somewhere to 
tell of. 

Such is Commerce, which shakes the cocoa-nut and bread- 
fruit tree in the remotest isle, and sooner or later dawns on 
the duskiest and most simple-minded savage. If we may 
be pardoned the digression, — who can help being affected 
at the thought of the very fine and slight, but positive rela- 
tion, in which the savage inhabitants of some remote isle 
stand to the mysterious white mariner, the child of the sun? 
As if we were to have dealings with an animal higher in the 
scale of being than ourselves. It is a barely recognized fact 
to the natives that he exists, and has his home far away 
somewhere, and is glad to buy their fresh fruits with his 
superfluous commodities. Under the same catholic sun 



TUESDAY. 191 

glances his white ship over Pacific waves into their smooth 
bays, and the poor savage's paddle gleams in the air. 

Man's little acts are grand, 
Beheld from land to land, 
There as they lie in time. 
Within their native clime. 

Ships with the noon-tide weigh, 

And glide before its ray 

To some retired bay, 

Their haunt, 

Whence, under tropic sun, 

Again they run, 

Bearing gum Senegal and Tragicant, 
For this was ocean meant, 
For this the sun was sent, 
And moon was lent, 
And winds in distant caverns pent. 

Since our voyage the railroad on the bank has been ex-- 
tended, and there is now but little boating on the Merrimac. 
All kinds of produce and stores were formerly conveyed by 
water, but now nothing is carried up the stream, and almost 
wood and bricks alone are carried down, and these are also 
carried on the railroad. The locks are fast wearing out, and 
will soon be impassable, since the tolls will not pay the ex- 
pense of repairing them, and so in a few years there will be 
an end of boating on this river. The boating, at present, is 
principally between Merrimac and Lowell, or Hooksett and 
Manchester. They make two or three trips from Merrimac 
to Lowell and back, about twenty-five miles each way, in a 
week, according to wind and weather. The boatman comes 
singing in to shore late at night, and moors his empty boat, 
and gets his supper and lodging in some house near at hand, 
and again early in the morning, by starlight, perhaps, he 
pushes away up stream, and by a shout, or the fragment of 
a song, gives notice of his approach to the lock-man with 
whom he is to take his breakfast. If he gets up to his wood- 



192 A WEEK. 

pile before noon he proceeds to load his boat, with the help 
of his single " hand," and is on his way down again before 
night. When he gets to Lowell he unloads his boat, and 
gets his receipt for his cargo, and having heard the news at 
the public house at Middlesex or elsewhere, goes back with 
his empty boat and his receipt in his pocket to the owner, 
and to get a new load. We were frequently advertised of 
their approach by some faint sound behind us, and looking 
rouaid saw them a mile off, creeping stealthily up the side 
of the stream like alligators. It was pleasant to hail these 
sailors of the Merrimac from time to time, and learn the 
news which circulated with them. We imagined that the 
sun shining on their bare heads had stamped a liberal and 
public character on their most private thoughts. 

The open and sunny interval still stretched away from 
the river, sometimes by two or more terraces, to the distant 
iiill country, and when we climbed the bank we commonly 
found an irregular copse-wood skirting the river; the primi- 
tive having floated down stream long ago to the " King's 

navy." Sometimes we saw the river-road a quarter or half 
a mile distant, and the parti-colored Concord stage, with 
its cloud of dust, its van of earnest traveling faces, and its 
rear of dusty trunks, reminding us that the country had its 
places of rendezvous for restless Yankee men. There dwelt 
along at considerable distances on this interval a quiet 
agricultural and pastoral people, with every house its well, 
as we sometimes proved, and every household, though never 
so still and remote it appeared in the noontide, its dinner 
about these times. There they lived on, those New Eng- 
land people, farmer lives, father and grandfather and great- 
grandfather, on and on without noise, keeping up tradition, 
and expecting, beside fair weather and abundant harvests, 
we did not learn what. They were contented to live, since 
it was so contrived for them, and where their lines had 
fallen — 



TUESDAY. 193 

Our uninquiring corpses lie more low 
Than our life's curiosity doth go. 

Yet these men had no need to travel to be as wise as 
Solomon in all his glory, so similar are the lives of men in 
all countries, and fraught with the same homely experiences. 
One half the world knoivs how the other half lives. 

About noon we passed a small village in Merrimac at 
Thornton's Ferry, and tasted of the waters of Naticook 
Brook on the same side, where French and his companions, 
whose graves we saw in Dunstable, were ambuscaded by the 
Indians. The humble village of Litchfield, with its steeple- 
less meeting house, stood on the opposite or east bank, near 
where a dense grove of willows backed by maples skirted 
the shore. There also we noticed some shagbark trees, 
which, as they do not grow in Concord, were as strange a 
sight to us as the palm would be, whose fruit only we have 
seen. Our course now curved gracefully to the north, leav- 
ing a low, flat shore on the Merrimac side, which forms a 
sort of harbor for canal-boats. We observed some fair 
elms and particularly large and handsome white maples 
standing conspicuously on this interval, and the opposite 
shore, a quarter of a mile below, was covered with young 
elms and maples six inches high, which had probably 
sprung from the seeds which had been washed across. 

Some carpenters were at work here mending a scow on 
the green and sloping bank. The strokes of their mallets 
echoed from shore to shore, and up and down the river, and 
their tools gleamed in the sun a quarter of a mile from us, 
and we realized that boat-building was as ancient and hon- 
orable an art as agriculture, and that there might be a naval 
as well as a pastoral life. The whole history of commerce 
was made manifest in that scow turned bottom upward on 
the shore. Thus did men begin to go down upon the sea 
in ships. We thought that it would be well for the traveler 
to build his boat on the bank of a stream, instead of finding 



194 



A WEEK. 



a ferry or a bridge In the Adventures of '* Henry the Fur- 
trader," it is pleasant to read that when with his Indians he 
reached the shore of Ontario, they consumed two days in 
making two canoes of the bark of the ehn tree, in which to 
transport themselves to Fort Niagara. It is a worthy in- 
cident in a journey, a delay as good as much rapid travel- 
ing. A good share of our interest in Xenophon's story of 
his retreat is in the maneuvers to get the army safely over 
the rivers, whether on rafts of logs or fagots, or on sheep 
skins blown up. And where could they better afford to 
tarry meanwhile than on the banks of a river. 

As we glided past at a distance, these out-door workmen 
appeared to have added some dignity to their labor by its 
very publicness. It was a part of the industry of nature, 
like the work of hornets and mud-wasps. 

The waves slowly beat, 

Just to keep the noon sweet, 

And no sound is floated o'er, 

Save the mallet on shore, 

Which echoing on high 

Seems a caulking the sky. 

The haze, the sun's dust of travel, had a lethean influence 
on the land and its inhabitants, and all creatures resigned 
themselves to float upon the inappreciable tides of nature. 

Woof of the sun, ethereal gauze, 
Woven of Nature's richest stuffs, 
Visible heat, air-water, and dry sea, 
Last conquest of the ".ye ; 
Toil of the day displayed, sun-dust. 
Aerial surf upon the shores of earth, 
Ethereal estuary, frith of light, 
Breakers of air, billows of heat. 
Fine summer spray on inland seas ; 
Bird of the sun, transparent-winged, 
Owlet of noon, soft-pinioned. 
From heath or stubble rising without song ; 
Establish thy serenity o'er the fields. 



TUESDAY. 195 

The routine which is in the sunshine and the finest days, 
as that which has conquered and prevailed, commends itself 
to us by its very antiquity and apparent solidity and neces- 
sity. Our weakness needs it, and our strength uses it. 
We cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves 
against it. If there were but one erect and solid standing 
tree in the woods, all creatures would go to rub against it 
and make sure of their footing. During the many hours 
which we spend in this waking sleep, the hand stands still 
on the face of the clock, and we grow like corn in the night. 
Men are as busy as the brooks or bees, and postpone every- 
thing to their business : as carpenters discuss politics be- 
tween the strokes of the hammer while they are shingling a 
roof. 

This noontide was a fit occasion to make some pleasant 
harbor, and there read the journal of some voyageur like 
ourselves, not too moral nor inquisitive, and which would not 
disturb the noon ; or else some old classic, the very flower 
of all reading, which we had postponed to such a season 
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure. 

But, alas, our chest, like the cabin of a coaster, contained 
only its well-thumbed Navigator for all literature, and we 
were obliged to draw on our memory for these things. We 
naturally remembered Alexander Henry's Adventures here, 
as a sort of classic among books of American travel. It 
contains scenery and rough sketching of men and incidents 
enough to inspire poets for many years, and to my fancy is 
as full of sounding names as any page of history, — Lake 
Winnipeg, Hudson's Bay, Ottaway, and portages innumer- 
able ; Chippewas, Gens de Terres, Les Pilleurs, The Weep- 
ers ; with reminiscences of Hearne's journey, and the like ; 
an immense and shaggy but sincere country summer and 
winter, adorned with chains of lakes and rivers, covered with 
snows with hemlocks and fir trees. There is a naturalness. 



196 ' A WEEK. 

an unpretending and cold life in this traveler, as in a Can- 
adian winter, where life was preserved through low tempera- 
tures and frontier dangers by furs within a stout heart. He 
has truth and moderation worthy of the father of history, 
which belong only to an intimate experience, and he does 
not defer too much to literature. The unlearned traveler 
may quote his single line from the poets with as good right 
as the scholar. He too may speak of the stars, for he sees 
them shoot perhaps when the astronomer does not. The 
good sense of this author is very conspicuous. He is a 
traveler who does not exaggerate, but writes for the infor- 
mation of his readers, for science and for history. His story 
is told with as much good faith and directness as if it were 
a report to his brother traders, or the Directors of the Hud- 
son Bay Company, and is fitly dedicated to Sir Joseph 
Banks. It reads like the argument to a great poem on the 
primitive state of the country and its inhabitants, and the 
reader imagines what in each case with the invocation of the 
Muse might be sung, and leaves off with suspended interest, 
as if the full account were to follow. In what school was 
this fur-trader educated ? He seem? to travel the immense 
snowy country with such purpose only as the reader who 
accompanies him, and to thelatter's imagination, it is, as it 
were, momentarily created to be the scene of his adventures. 
What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not 
the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Baddock, or 
the Northwest, which it furnishes ; not the annals of the 
country, but the natural facts, ox perennials, which are ever 
without date. When out of history the truth shall be ex- 
tracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves. 

The Souhegan, or Crooked River, as some translate it, 
comes in from the west about a mile and a half above 
Thornton's Ferry. Babboosuck Brook empties into it near 
its mouth. There are said to be some of the finest water 



TUESDAY. 197 

privileges in tlie country still unimproved on the former 
stream, at a short distance from the Merrimac. One spring 
morning, March 22, in the year 1677, an incident occurred 
on the banks of the river here, which is interesting to us as 
a slight memorial of an interview between two ancient 
tribes of men, one of which is now extinct, while the other, 
though it is still represented by a miserable remnant, has 
long since disappeared from its ancient hunting grounds. 
A Mr. James Parker at "Mr. Hinchmanne's farme ner 
Meremack," wrote thus " to the Honred Governer and 
Council at Bostown, Hast, Post Hasty 

Sagamore Wanalancet come this morning to informe me, and then went 
to Mr. Tyng's to informe him, that his son being on ye other sid of 
Meremack river over against Souhegan upon the 22 day of this instant, 
about tene of the clock in the morning, he discovered 15 Indians on this 
sid the river, which he soposed to be Mohokes by ther spech. He called 
to them ; they answered, but he could not understand ther spech ; and he 
having a conow ther in the river, he went to breck his conow that they 
might not have ani ues of it. In the mean time they shot about thirty 
guns at him, and he being much frighted fled, and come home forthwith 
to Nahamcock [Pawtucket Falls or Lowell] wher ther wigowames now 
stand. 

Penacooks and Mohawks! ubique getitium sunt ? Where 
are they now ? — In the year 1670, a Mohawk warrior scalped 
a Naamkeak or Wamesit Indian maiden near where Lowell 
now stands. She, however, recovered. Even as late as 
1685, John Hogkins, a Penacook Indian, who describes his 
grandfather as having lived "at place called Malamake 
rever, other name chef Natukkog and Panukkog, that one 
rever great many names," wrote thus to the governor : 

May 15, 1685. 
Honor governor my friend : 

You my friend I desire your worship and your power, because I hope 
you can dosom great matters this one. I am poor and naked and I have 
no men at my place because I afraid allwayes Mohogs he will kill me 



198 A WEEK. 

every day and night. If your worship when please pray help me you no 
let Mohogs kill me at my place at Malamake river called Pannukkog and 
Natukkog, I will submit your worship and your power. And now I want 
pouder and such alminishon shatt and guns, because I have forth at my 
horn and I plant theare. 

This all Indian hand, but pray you do consider your humble servant, 

John IIogkins. 
Signed also by Simon Detogkom, King Hary, Sam Linis, Mr. Jorge 
Rodunnnnukgus, John Owamosimmin, and nine other Indians, with their 
marks against their names. 

But now, one hundred and fifty-four years having elapsed 
shice the date of this letter, we went unalarmed on our way, 
without" brecking " our "conow," reading the New England 
Gazetteer, and seeing no traces of " Mohogs " on the banks. 

The Souhegan, though a rapid river, seemed to-day to 
have borrowed its character from the noon. 

Where gleaming fields of haze 
Meet the voyageur's gaze, 
And above, the heated air 
Seems to make a river there. 
The pines stand up with pride 
By the Souhegan 's side, 
And the hemlock and the larch 
With their triumphal arch 
Are waving o'er its march 

To the sea. 
No wind stirs its waves, 
But the spirits of the braves 

Hov'ring o'er. 
Whose antiquated graves 
Its still water laves 
On the shore. 
With an Indian's stealthy tread, 
It goes sleeping in its bed, 
Without joy or grief, 
Or the rustle of a leaf, 
Without a ripple or a billow, 
Or the sigh of a willow. 



TUESDAY. 190 

From the Lyndeboro' hills 

To the Merrimac mills. 

With a louder din 

Did its current begin, 

When melted the snow 

On the far mountain's brow, 

And the drops came together 

In that rainy weather. 

Experienced river, 

Hast thou flowed forever ? 

Souhegan soundeth old, 

But the half is not told, 

What names hast thou borne 

In the ages far gone, 

When the Xanthus and Meander 

Commenced to wander, 

Ere the black bear haunted 

Thy red forest floor, 
Or nature had planted 

The pines by thy shore. 

During the heat of the day, we rested on a large island 
a mile above the mouth of this river, pastured by a herd of 
cattle, with steep banks and scattered elms and oaks, and a 
sufficient channel for canal boats on each side. When we 
made a fire to boil some rice for our dinner, the flames 
spreading amid the dry grass, and the smoke curling 
silently upward and casting grotesque shadows on the 
ground seemed phenomena of the noon, and we fancied that 
we progressed up the stream without effort, and as natur- 
ally as the wind and tide went down, not outraging the calm 
days by unworthy bustle or impatience. The woods on the 
neighboring shore were alive with pigeons, which were mov- 
ing south looking for mast, but now, like ourselves, spend- 
ing their noon in the shade. We could hear the slight, 
wiry, winnowing sound of their wings as they changed their 
roosts from time to time, and their gentle and tremulous 
cooing. They sojourned with us during the noontide, 



2O0 A WEEK. 

greater travelers far than we. You may frequently discover 
a single pair sitting upon the lower branches of the white 
pine in the depths of the wood, at this hour of the day, so 
silent and solitary, and with such a hermit-like appearance, 
as if they had never strayed beyond its skirts, while the 
acorn which was gathered in the forests of Maine is still un- 
digested in their crops. We obtained one of these hand- 
some birds, which lingered too long upon its perch, and 
plucked and broiled it here with some other game, to be 
carried along for our supper ; for besides the provisions 
which we carried with us, we depended mainly on the river 
and forest for our supply. It is true, it did not seem to be 
putting this bird to its right use, to pluck off its feathers, 
and extract its entrails, and broil its carcass on the coals ; 
but we heroically persevered, nevertheless, waiting for fur- 
ther information. The same regard for Nature which ex- 
cited our sympathy for her creatures, nerved our hands to 
carry through what we had begun. For we would be hon- 
orable to the party we deserted ; we would fulfill fate, and 
so at length, perhaps, detect the secret innocence of these 
incessant tragedies which Heaven allows. 

Too quick resolves do resolution wrong, 
What, part so soon to be divorced so long ? 
Things to be done are long to be debated ; 
Heaven is not day'd, Repentance is not dated. 

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our 
virtue the return stroke straps our vice. Where is the skill- 
ful swordsman who can give clean wounds, and rip up his 
work with the other edge ? 

Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end 
for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that 
people the air and forest for our solacement ? The spar- 
rows seem always chipper, never infirm. We do not see 
their bodies lie about ; and yet there is a tragedy at the 



TUESDAY. 201 

end of each one of their Hves. They must perish miser- 
ably ; not one of them is translated. True " not a sparrow 
falleth to the ground without our Heavenly Father's knowl- 
edge," but they do fall, nevertheless. 

The carcasses of some poor squirrels, however, the same 
that frisked so merrily in the morning, which we had skinned 
and emboweled for our dinner, we abandoned in disgust, 
with tardy humanity, as too wretched a resource for any 
but starving men. It was to perpetuate the practice of a 
barbarous era. If they had been larger, our crime had 
been less. Their small red bodies, little bundles of red tis- 
sue, mere gobbets of venison, would not have " fattened 
fire." With a sudden impulse we threw them away, and 
washed our hands, and boiled some rice for our dinner. 
" Behold the difference between the one who eateth flesh 
and him to whom it belonged ! The first hath a moment- 
ary enjoyment, while the latter is deprived of existence ! " 
" Who could commit so great a crime against a poor animal, 
who is fed only by the herbs which grow wild in the woods, 
and whose belly is burned out with hunger ?" We remem- 
bered a picture of mankind in the hunter age, chasing hares 
down the mountains, O me miserable ! Yet sheep and 
oxen are but larger squirrels, whose hides are saved and 
meat is salted, whose souls perchance are not so large in 
proportion to their bodies. 

There should always be some flowering and maturing of 
fruits of nature in the cooking process. Some simple dishes 
recommend themselves to our imaginations as well as 
palates. In parched corn, for instance, there is a manifest 
sympathy between the bursting seed and the more perfect 
developments of vegetable life. It is a perfect flower with its 
petals, like the houstonia or anemone. On my warm hearth 
these cerealian blossoms expanded ; here is the bank where- 
on they grew. Perhaps some such visible blessing would 
always attend the simple and wholesome repast. 



202 A WEEK. 

Here was that "pleasant harbor" which we had sighed 
for, where the weary voyageur could read the journal of 
some other sailor, whose bark had plowed, perchance, more 
famous and classic seas. At the tables of the gods, after 
feasting follow music and song ; we will recline now under 
these island trees, and for our minstrel call on 
ANACREON. 

Nor has he ceased his charming song, but still that lyre, 
Though he is dead, sleeps not in Hades. 

Simonides' Epigram on Anacreon. 

I lately met with an old volume from as London book- 
shop, containing the Greek Minor Poets, and it was a 
pleasure to read once more only the words, — Orpheus, — 
Linus, — Musseus — those faint poetic sounds and echoes of a 
name, dying away on the ears of us modern men ; and those 
hardly more substantial sounds, Mimnermus — Ibycus — 
Alcaeus — Stesichorus — Menander. They lived not in vain. 
We can converse with these bodiless fames without reserve 
or personality. 

I know of no studies so composing as those of the clas- 
sical scholar. When we have sat down to them, life seems 
as still and serene as if it were very far off, and I believe it 
is not habitually seen from any common platform so truly 
and unexaggerated as in the light of literature. In serene 
hours we contemplate the tour of the Greek and Latin au- 
thors with more pleasure than the traveler does the fairest 
scenery of Greece or Italy. Where shall we find a more re- 
fined society ? That highway down from Homer and Hesiod 
to Horace and Juvenal is more attractive than the Appian. 
Reading the classics, or conversing with those old Greeks 
and Latins in their surviving works, is like walking amid 
the stars and constellations, a high and byway serene to 
travel. Indeed, the true scholar will be not a little of an 
astronomer in his habits. Distracting cares will not be 
allowed to obstruct the field of his vision, for the higher 



TUESDAY. 203 

regions of literature, like astronomy, are above storm and 
darkness. 

But passing by these rumors of bards, let us pause for a 
moment at the Teian poet. 

There is something strangely modern about him. He is 
very easily turned into English. Is it that our lyric poets 
have resounded only that lyre, which would sound only 
light subjects and which Simonides tells us does not sleep 
in Hades? His odes are like gems of pure ivory. They 
possess an ethereal and evanescent beauty like summer even- 
ings, o XPV ^^ voeiv voov av^ei, which you must perceive 
with the floiver of the mind, — and show how slight a beauty 
could be expressed. You have to consider them, as the 
stars of lesser magnitude, with the side of the eye, and look 
aside from them to behold them. They charm us by their 
serenity and freedom from exaggeration and passion, and 
by a certain flower-like beauty, which does not propose it- 
self, but must be approached and studied like a natural 
object. But perhaps their chief merit consists in the light- 
ness and yet security of their tread ; 

The young and tender stalk 
Ne'er bends when they do walk. 

True, our nerves are never strung by them ; it is too 
constantly the sound of the lyre, and never the note of the 
trumpet ; but they are not gross, as has been presumed, 
but always elevated above the sensual. 

Perhaps these are the best that have come down to us : 

ON HIS LYRE. 

I wish to sing the Atridje, 
And Cadmus I wish to sing ; 
But my lyre sounds 
Only love with its chords. 
Lately I changed the strings 
And all the lyre ; 



204 A WEEK. 

And I began to sing the labors 

Of Hercules ; but my lyre 

Resounded loves. 

Farewell, henceforth, for me, 

Heroes ! for my lyre 

Sings only loves. 



TO A SWALLOW. 

Thou indeed, dear swallow, 
Yearly going and coming. 
In summer weavest thy nest. 
And in winter go'st disappearing 
Either to Nile or to Memphis. 
But Love always weaveth 
His nest in my heart 



ON A SILVER CUP. 

Turning the silver, 

Vulcan, make for me, 

Not indeed a panoply, 

For what are battles to me ? 

But a hollow cup, 

As deep as thou canst. 

And make for me in it 

Neither stars, nor wagons, 

Nor sad Orion ; 

What are the Pleiades to me T 

What the shining Bootes ? 

Make vines for me, 

And clusters of grapes in it, 

And of gold Love and Bathyllus 

Treading the grapes 

With the fair Lyseus. 



ON HIMSELF. 

Thou sing'st the affairs of Thebes, 
And he the battles of Troy, 



TUESDAY. 205 



But I of my own defeats. 
No horse have wasted me, 
Nor foot, nor ships ; 
But a new and different host, 
From eyes smiting me. 



TO A DOVE. 

Lovely dove, 

Whence, whence dost thou fly ? 

Whence, running on air, 

Dost thou waft and diffuse 

So many sweet ointments ? 

Who art ? What thy errand ? — 

Anacreon sent me 

To a boy, to Bathyllus, 

Who lately is ruler and tyrant of all. 

Cythere has sold me 

For one little song, 

And I'm doing this service 

For Anacreon. 

And now, as you see, 

I bear letters from him. 

And he says that directly 

He'll make me free. 

But though he release me, 

His slave 1 will tarry with him. 

For why should 1 fly 

Over mountains and fields, 

And perch upon trees, 

Eating some wild thing? 

Now indeed I eai bread. 

Plucking it from the hands 

Of Anacreon himself ; 

And he gives me to drink 

The wine which he tastes. 

And drinking, I dance. 

And shadow my master's 

Face with my wings ; 

And, going to rest. 



206 A WEEK. 



On the lyre itself I sleep, 
That is all ; get thee gone. 
Thou hast made me more talkative, 
Man, than a crow. 



ON LOVE. 

Love walking swiftly, 

With hyacinthine staff, 

Bade me to take a run with him ; 

And hastening through swift torrents, 

And woody places, and over precipices, 

A water-snake stung me. 

And my heart leaped up to 

My mouth, and I should have fainted ; 

But Love fanning my brows 

With his soft wings, said, 

Surely, thou art not able to love. 



ON WOMEN. 

Nature has given horns 

To bulls, and hoofs to horses, 

Swiftness to hares. 

To lions yawning teeth, 

Tfefishes swimming, 

To birds flight. 

To men wisdom. 

For woman she had nothing beside ; 

What then does she give ? Beauty, 

Instead of all shields. 

Instead of all spears ; 

And she conquers even iron 

And fire, who is beautiful. 



ON LOVERS. 

Horses have the mark 

Of fire on their sides, 

And some have distinguished 

The Parthian men by their crests ; 



TUESDAY 



207 



So I, seeing lovers, 

Know them at once, 

For they have a certain slight 

Brand on their hearts. 



TO A SWALLOW. 

What dost thou wish me to do to thee- 

What, thou loquacious swallow ? 

Dost thou wish me taking thee 

Thy light pinions to clip ? 

Or rather to pluck out 

Thy tongue from within. 

As that Tereus did ? 

Why with thy notes in the dawn 

Hast thou plundered Bathyllus 

From my beautiful dreams ? 



TO A COLT, 

Thracian colt, why at me 
Looking aslant with thy eyes. 
Dost thou cruelly flee. 
And think that I know nothing wise ? 
Know I could well 
Put the bridle on thee. 
And holding the reins, turn 
Round the bounds of the course. 
But now thou browsest the meads, 
And gamboling lightly dost play. 
For thou hast no skillful horseman 
Mounted upon thy back. 



CUPID WOUNDED. 

Love once among roses 

Saw not 

A sleeping bee, but was stung ; 

And being wounded in the finger 

Of his hand, cried for pain. 



2o8 A WEEK. 

Running as well as flying 

To the beautiful Venus, 

I am killed, mother, said he, 

I am killed, and I die. 

A little serpent has stung me, 

Winged, which they call 

A bee — the husbandmen. 

And she said. If the sting 

Of a bee afflicts you. 

How, think you, are they afflicted, 

Love, whom you smite ? 

Late in the afternoon, for we had lingered long on the 
island, we raised our sails for the first time, and for a short 
hour the southwest wind was our ally ; but it did not please 
Heaven to abet us long. With one sail raised we swept 
slowly up the eastern side of the stream, steering clear of the 
rocks, while from the top of a hill which formed the opposite 
bank, some lumberers were rolling down timber to be rafted 
down the stream. We could see their axes and levers 
gleaming in the sun, and the logs came down with a dust 
and a rumbling sound, which was reverberated through the 
woods beyond us on our side, like the roar of artillery. But 
Zephyr soon took us out of sight and hearing of this com- 
merce. Having passed Read's Ferry, and another island 
called McGaw's Island, we reached some rapids called 
Moore's Falls, and entered on " that section of the river, nine 
miles in extent, converted, by law, into the Union Canal, 
comprehending in that space six distinct falls ; at each of 
which, and at several intermediate places, work has been 
done." After passing Moore's Falls by means of locks, we 
again had recourse to our oars, and went merrily on our 
way, driving the small sand-piper from rock to rock before 
us, and sometimes rowing near enough to a cottage on the 
bank, though they were few and far between, to see the sun- 
flowers, and the seed vessels of the poppy, like small goblets 
filled with the water of Lethe, before the door, but without 



TUESDAY. 



209 



disturbing the sluggish household behind. Thus we held 
on, sailing or dipping our way along with the paddle up this 
broad river, — smooth and placid, flowing over concealed 
rocks, where we could see the pickerel lying low in the 
transparent water, — eager to double some distant cape, to 
make some great bend as in the life of man, and see what 
new perspective would open ; looking far into a new country, 
broad and serene, the cottages of settlers seen afar for the 
first time, yet with the moss of a century on their roofs, and 
the third or fourth generation in their shadow. Strange 
was it to consider how the sun and the summer, the buds 
of spring and the seared leaves of autumn, were related to 
these cabins along the shore ; how all the rays which paint 
the landscape radiate from them, and the flight of the crow 
and the gyrations of the hawk have reference to their roofs. 
Still the ever rich and fertile shores accompanied us, fringed 
with vines and alive with small birds and frisking squirrels, 
the edge of some farmer's field or widow's wood-lot, or 
wilder, perchance, where the muskrat, the little medicine of 
the river, drags itself along stealthily over the alder leaves 
and muscle shells, and man and the memory of man are 
banished far. 

At length the unwearied, never sinking shore, still holding 
on without break, with its cool copses and serene pasture 
grounds, tempted us to disembark : and we adventurously 
landed on this remote coast, to survey it, unknown to any 
human inhabitant probably to this day. But we still re- 
member the gnarled and hospitable oaks which grew even 
there for our entertainment, and were no strangers to us, the 
lonely horse in his pasture, and the patient cows, whose 
path to the river, so judiciously chosen to overcome the 
difficulties of the way, we followed, and disturbed their 
ruminations in the shade ; and, above all, the cool free 
aspect of the wild apple trees, generously proffering their 
fruit to us, though still green and crude, the hard, round, 



glossy fruit, which, if not ripe, still was not poison, but New 
English too, brought hither its ancestors by ours once. 
These gentler trees imparted a half-civilized and twilight 
aspect to the otherwise barbarian land. Still further on we 
scrambled up the rocky channel of a brook, which had long 
served nature for a sluice there, leaping like it from rock to 
rock through tangled woods, at the bottom of a ravine, which 
grew darker and darker, and more and more hoarse the 
murmurs of the stream, until we reached the ruins of a mill, 
where now the ivy grew and the trout glanced through the 
crumbling flume ; and there we imagined what had been the 
dreams and speculations of some early settler. But the 
waning day compelled us to embark once more, and redeem 
this wasted time with long and vigorous sweeps over the 
rippling stream. 

It was still wild and solitary, except that at intervals of a 
mile or two the roof of a cottage might be seen over the 
bank. This region, as we read, was once famous for the 
manufacture of straw bonnets of the Leghorn kind, of which 
it claims the invention in these parts, and occasionally some 
industrious damsel tripped down to the water's edge, as it 
appeared, to put her straw asoak.and stood awhile to watch 
the retreating voyageurs, and catch the fragment of a boat 
song which we had made, wafted over the water. 

Thus, perchance, the Indian hunter, 

Many a lagging year agone, 
Gliding o'er thy rippling waters, 

Lowly hummed a natural song. 

Now the sun's behind the willows, 

Now he gleams along the waves. 
Faintly o'er the wearied billows 

Come the spirits of the braves. 

Just before sundown we reached some more falls in the 
town of Bedford, where some stone-masons were employed 



TUESDAY. ill 

repairing the locks in a solitary part of the river. They 
were interested in our adventures, especially one young- 
man of our own age, who inquired at first if we were bound 
up to " ' Skeag," and when he had heard our story and ex- 
amined our outfit^ asked us other questions, but temperately 
still, and always turning to his work again, though as if it 
were become his duty. It was plain that he would like to 
go with us, and as he looked up the river many a distant 
cape and wooded shore were reflected in his eye as well as 
in his thoughts. When we were ready he left his work, and 
helped us through the locks with a sort of quiet enthusiasm, 
telling us we were at Coos Falls, and we could still distin- 
guish the strokes of his chisel for many sweeps after we 
had left him. 

We wished to camp this night on a large rock in the mid- 
dle of the stream, just above these falls, but the want of fuel, 
and the difficulty of fixing our tent firmly, prevented us ; so 
we made our bed on the main land opposite, on the west 
bank, in the town of Bedford, in a retired place, as we sup- 
posed, there being no house in sight. 



WEDNESDAY. 



Man is man's foe and destiny. 

Cotton. 



Early this morning, as we were rolling up our buffaloes 
and loading" our boat amid the dew, while our embers were 
still smoking, the masons who worked at the locks, and 
whom we had seen crossing the river in their boat the even- 
ing before while we were examining the rock, came upon us 
as they were going to their work, and we found that we 
had pitched our tent directly in their path to their boat. 
This was the only time that we were observed on our camp- 
ing ground. Thus, far from the beaten highways and the 
dust and din of travel, we beheld the country privately, yet 
freely, and at our leisure. Other roads do some violence to 
Nature, and bring the traveler to stare at her, but the river 
steals into the scenery it traverses without intrusion, silently 
creating and adorning" it, and is as free to come and go as 
the zephyr. 

As we shoved away from this rocky coast, before sunrise, 
the smaller bittern, the genius of the shore, was moping along 
its edge or stood probing the mud for its food, with ever an 
eye on us, though so demurely at work, or else he ran along 
the wet stones like a wrecker in his storm coat, looking out 
for wrecks of snails and cockles. Now away he goes, with 
a limping flight, uncertain where he will alight, until a rod 
of clear sand amid the alders invites his feet ; and now our 
steady approach compels him to seek a new retreat. It is a 
bu'd of the oldest Thalesian school, and no doubt believes 



WEDNESDAY. 213 

in the priority of water to the other elements ; the relic of a 
twilight antediluvian age which yet inhabits these bright 
American rivers with us Yankees. There is something ven- 
erable in this melancholy and contemplative race of birds, 
which may have trodden the earth while it was yet in a 
slimy and imperfect state. Perchance their tracks, too, are 
still visible on the stones. It still lingers into our glaring 
summers, bravely supporting its fate without sympathy from 
man, as if it looked forward to some second advent of which 
//<? has no assurance. One wonders if, by its patient study 
by rocks and sandy capes, it has wrested the whole of her 
secret from Nature yet. What a rich experience it must 
have gained, standing on one leg and looking out from its 
dull eye so long on sunshine and rain, moon and stars ! 
What could it tell of stagnant pools and reeds and dank 
night fogs? It would be worth the while to look closely 
into the eye which has been open and seeing at such hours, 
and in such solitudes, — its dull, yellowish, greenish eye. 
Methinks my own soul must be a bright invisible green. 
I have seen these birds stand by the half dozen together 
in the shallow water along the shore, with their bills thrust 
into the mud at the bottom, probing for food, the whole head 
being concealed, while the neck and body formed an arch 
above the water. 

Cohass Brook, the outlet of Massabesic Pond — which last 
is five or six miles distant, and contains fifteen hundred 
acres, being the largest body of fresh water in Rockingham 
County — comes in near here from the east. Rowing be- 
tween Manchester and Bedford, we passed, at an early hour, 
a ferry and some falls, called Goff's Falls, the Indian Cohas- 
set, where there is a small village and a handsome green 
islet in the middle of the stream. From Bedford and Mer- 
rimac have been boated the bricks of which Lowell is made. 
About twenty years before, as they told us, one Moore, of 
Bedford, having clay on his farm, contracted to furnish 



214 A WkkK. 

eight millions of bricks to the founders of that city within 
two years. He fulfilled his contract in one year, and since 
then bricks have been the principal export from these towns. 
The farmers found thus a market for their wood, and when 
they had brought a load to the kilns, they could cart a load 
of bricks to the shore, and so make a profitable day's work 
of it. Thus all parties were benefited. It was worth the 
while to see the place where Lowell was " dug out." So 
likewise Manchester is being built of bricks made still higher 
up the river at Hooksett. 

There might be seen here on the bank of the Merrimac, 
near Goff's Falls, in what is now the town of Bedford, fa- 
mous " for hops and for its fine domestic manufactures," 
some graves of the aborigines. The land still bears this 
scar here, and time is slowly crumbling the bones of a race. 
Yet, without fail every spring since they first fished and 
hunted here, the brown thrasher has heralded the morning 
from a birch or alder spray, and the undying race of reed- 
birds still rustles through the withering grass. But these 
bones rustle not. These moldering elements are slowly 
preparing for another metamorphosis, to serve new masters, 
and what was the Indian's will ere long be the white man's 
sinew. 

We learned that Bedford was not so famous for hops as 
formerly, since the price is fluctuating, and poles are now 
scarce. Yet if the traveler goes back a few miles from the 
river, the hop kilns will still excite his curiosity. 

There were few incidents in our voyage this forenoon, 
though the river was now more rocky and the falls more 
frequent than before. It was a pleasant change, after row- 
ing incessantly for many hours, to lock ourselves through in 
some retired place, for commonly there was no lock-man at 
hand, one sitting in the boat, while the other, sometimes 
with no little labor and heave-yoing, opened and shut the 
gates, waiting patiently to see the locks fill. We did not 



WEDNESDAY. 2i5 

6nce use the wheels which we had provided. Taking advan- 
tage of the eddy, we were sometimes floated up to the locks 
almost in the face of the falls ; and by the same cause, any 
floating timber was carried round in a circle and repeatedly 
drawn into the rapids before it finally went down the stream. 
These old gray structures, with their quiet arms stretched 
over the river in the sun, appeared like natural objects in 
the scenery, and the king-fisher and sand-piper alighted on 
them as readily as on stakes or rocks. 

We rowed leisurely up the stream for several hours, until 
the sun had got high in the sky, our thoughts monotonously 
beating time to our oars. For outward variety there was 
only the river and the receding shores, a vista continually 
opening behind and closing before us, as we sat with our 
backs up stream, and for inward such thoughts as the muses 
grudgingly lent us. We were always passing some low in- 
viting shore or some overhanging bank, on which, however, 
wenever landed. 

Such near aspects had we 

Of our life's scenery. 

It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. 
The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean- 
creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm 
bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the 
geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion 
of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so 
deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to 
the mouth of my Snug Harbor. From an old ruined fort 
on Staten Island, I have loved to watch all day some vessel 
whose name I had read in the morning through the tele- 
graph glass, when she first came upon the coast, and her 
hull heaved up and glistened in the sun, from the moment 
when the pilot and most adventurous news-boats met her, 
past the Hook, and up the narrow channel of the wide outer 
bay, till she was boarded by the health officer, and took her 



:x6 A WKKK. 

station ai Quaramine, or held on her unquestioned course 
to the wharves ot New York. It was interesting, too, to 
watch the less adventurous newsman, who made his assault 
as the vessel swept through the Narrows, defying plague and 
quarantine law, and fastening his little cock boat to l\er huge 
side, clambereil up and disappeared in the cabin. .\nd 
then 1 could imagine what momentous news was being im- 
parted by the captain, which no American ear had ever 
heard, that Asia, Africa, Europe — ^were all sunk ; for which 
at length he jxiys the price, and is seen descending the ship's 
side with his bundle of newspapers, but not where he first 
got up,- for these arrivers do not stand still to gossip, — and 
he hastes away with steady sweeps to dispose of his wares 
to the highest bidder, and we shall ere long read some- 
thing stanling, — " By the latest arri\*al," — " by the good 

ship ." On Sunday 1 beheld from some interior hill 

the long procession of vessels getting to sea. reaching from 
the city wharves through the Narrows, and past the Hook, 
quite to the ocean stream, far as the eye could reach, with 
stalely march and silken sails, all counting on lucky voyages, 
but each lime some of the number, no doubt, destined to 
go to Davy's locker, and never come on this coast again. 
And again, in the evening of a pleasant day. it was my 
amusement to count the sails in sight. But as the setting 
sun continually brought more and more to light, still further 
in the horizon, the last count always had the advantage, till 
by the time the last rays streamed over the sea, I had 
doubled and trebled my first number ; though I could no 
longer class them all under the several heads of ships, 
barks, brigs, schooners, and sloops, but most were faint 
generic ^rsstrU only. And then the temperate twilight light. 
perchance, revealed the floating home of some sailor whose 
thoughts were already alienated from this American coast, 
and directed toward the Europe of our dreams. 1 have 
stood upon the same hill-top when a thunder shower rolling 



WEDNESDAY. 217 

down from the Catskills and Highlands passed over the 
island, deluging the land, and when it had suddenly left us 
in sunshine, have seen it overtake successively with its huge 
shadow and dark descending wall of rain the vessels in the 
bay. Their bright sails were suddenly drooping and dark 
like the sides of barns, and they seemed to shrink before the 
storm ; while still far beyond them on the sea, through this 
dark veil, gleamed the sunny sails of those vessejs which 
the storm had not yet reached. And at midnight, when all 
around and overhead was darkness, I have seen a field of 
trembling silvery light far out on the sea, the reflection of 
the moonlight from the ocean, as if beyond the precincts of 
our night, where the moon traversed a cloudless heaven, — 
and sometimes a dark speck in its midst, where some 
fortunate vessel was pursuing its happy voyage by 
night. 

But to us river sailors the sun never rose out of ocean 
waves, but from some green coppice, and went down behind 
some dark mountain Ime. We, too, were but dwellers on 
the shore, like the bittern of the morning, and our pursuit 
the wrecks of snails and cockles. Nevertheless, we were 
contented to know the better one fair particular shore. 

My life is like a stroll upon the beach, 

As near the ocean's edge as I can go, 
My tardy steps its waves sometimes o'erreach, 

Sometimes I stay to let them overflow. 

My sole employment 'tis, and scrupulous care, 
To place my gains beyond the reach of tides, 

Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare, 
Which ocean kindly to my hand confides. 

I have but few companions on the shore. 

They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea. 

Yet oft I think the ocean they've sailed o'er 
Is deeper known upon the strand to me. 



2l8 A WEEl^. 

The middle sea contains no crimson duls6, 
Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view, 

Along the shore my hand is on its pulse, 
And I converse with many a shipwrecked crew. 

The small houses which were scattered along the river at 
intervals of a mile or more, were commonly out of sight to 
us, but sometimes when we rowed near the shore, we heard 
the peevish note of a hen, or some slight domestic sound, 
which betrayed them. The lock-men's houses were par- 
ticularly well placed, retired, and high, always at falls or 
rapids, and commanding the pleasantest reaches of the 
river, — for it is generally wider and more lake-like just 
above a fall, — and there they wait for boats. These humble 
dwellings, homely and sincere, in which a hearth was still 
the essential part, were more pleasing to our eyes than pal- 
aces or castles would have been. In the noon of these 
days, as we have said, we occasionally climbed the banks and 
approached these houses, to get a glass of water and make 
acquaintance with their inhabitants. High in the leafy 
bank, surrounded commonly by a small patch of corn and 
beans, squashes and melons, with sometimes a graceful hop- 
yard on one side, and some running vine over the windows, 
they appeared like bee-hives set to gather honey for a sum- 
mer. I have not read of any Arcadian life which surpasses 
the actual luxury and serenity of these New England dwell- 
ings. For the outward gilding, at least, the age is golden 
enough. As you approach the sunny door- way, awakening 
the echoes by your steps, still no sound from these barracks 
of repose, and you fear that the gentlest knock may seem 
rude to the Oriental dreamers. The door is opened, per- 
chance, by some Yankee-Hindoo woman, whose small- 
voiced but sincere hospitality, out of the bottomless depths 
of a quiet nature, has traveled quite round to the opposite 
side, and fears only to obtrude its kindness. You step over 
the white-scoured floor to the bright "dresser" lightly, as 



WEDNESDAY. 219 

if afraid to disturb the devotions of the household, — for 
Oriental dynasties appear to have passed away since the 
dinner table was last spread here, — and thence to the fre- 
quented curb, where you see your long-forgotten, unshaven 
face at the bottom, in juxtaposition with new-made butter 
and the trout in the well. " Perhaps you would like some 
molasses and ginger," suggests the faint noon voice. Some- 
times there sits the brother who follows the sea, their rep- 
resentative man ; who knows only how far it is to the 
nearest port, no more distances, all the rest is sea and dis- 
tant capes, — patting the dog, or dandling the kitten in arms 
that were stretched by the cable and the oar, pulling against 
Boreas or the trade-winds. He looks up at the stranger 
half pleased, half astonished, with a mariner's eye, as if he 
were a dolphin within cast. If men will believe it, sua si 
bona norint, there are no more quiet Tempes, nor more 
poetic and Arcadian lives, than may be lived in these New 
England dwellings. We thought that the employment of 
their inhabitants by day would be to tend the flowers and 
herds, and at night, like the shepherds of old, to cluster and 
give names to the stars from the river banks. 

We passed a large and densely wooded island this fore- 
noon, between Short's and Griffith's Falls, the fairest which 
we had met with, with a handsome grove of elms at its head. 
If it had been evening we should have been glad to camp 
there. Not long after one or two more occurred. The 
boatmen told us that the current had recently made impor- 
tant changes here. An island always pleases my imagina- 
tion, even the smallest, as a small continent and integral 
portion of the globe. I have a fancy for building my hut 
on one. Even a bare grassy isle which I can see entirely 
over at a glance, has some undefined and mysterious charm 
for me. It is commonly the offspring of the junction of 
two rivers, whose currents bring down and deposit their 
respective sands in the eddy at their confluence, as it were 



220 A WEEK. 

the womb of a continent. By what a delicate and far- 
fetched contribution every island is made ! What an enter- 
prise of Nature thus to lay the foundations of and to build 
up the future continent, of golden and silver sands and the 
ruins of forests, with ant- like industry ! Pindar gives the 
following account of the origin of Thera, whence, in after 
times, Libyan Cyrene was settled by Battus. Triton, in the 
form of Eurypylus, presents a clod to Euphemus, one of the 
Argonauts, as they are about to return home. 

He knew of our haste, 
And immediately seizing a clod 
With his right hand, strove to give it 
As a chance stranger's gift. 

Nor did the hero disregard him, but leaping on the shore. 
Stretching hand to hand, 
Received the mystic clod. 
But I hear it sinking from the deck, 
Go with the sea b'ine 
At evening accompanying the watery sea. 
Often indeed I urged the careless 
Menials to guard it, but their minds forgot. 
And now in this island the imperishable seed of spacious Libya 
Is spilled before its hour. 

It is a beautiful fable, also related by Pindar, how Helius, 
or the Sun, looked down into the sea one day, — when per- 
chance his rays were first reflected from some increasing 
glittering sand-bar, — and saw the fair and fruitful island of 
Rhodes 

Springing up from the bottom. 
Capable of feeding many men and suitable for flocks ; 

and at the nod of Zeus, 

The island sprang from the watery 
Sea ; and the Genial Father of penetrating beams. 
Ruler of fire-breathing horses, has it. 

The shifting islands ! who would not be willing that his 
house should be undermined by such a foe ! The inhabi- 



WEDNESDAY. 221 

tant of an island can tell what currents formed the land 
which he cultivates ; and his earth is still being created or 
destroyed. There before his door, perchance, still empties 
the stream which brought down the material of his farm ages 
before, and is still bringing it down or washing it away, — 
the graceful, gentle robber ! 

Not long after this we saw the Piscataquoag, or Sparkling 
Water, emptying in on our left, and heard the falls of Amos- 
keag above. Large quantities of lumber, as we read in the 
gazetteer, were still annually floated down the Piscataquoag 
to the Merrimac, and there are many fine mill privileges on 
it. Just above the mouth of this river we passed the artifi- 
cial falls where the canals of the Manchester Manufacturing 
Company discharge themselves into the Merrimac. They 
are striking enough to have a name, and, with the scenery 
of a Bashpish, would be visited from far and near. The 
water falls thirty or forty feet over seven or eight steep and 
narrow terraces of stone, probably to break its force, and is 
converted into one mass of foam. This canal water did not 
seem to be the worse for the wear, but foamed and fumed 
as purely, and boomed as savagely and impressively, as a 
mountain torrent, and though it came from under a factory, 
we saw a rainbow here. These are now the Amoskeag 
Falls, removed a mile down stream. But we did not tarry 
to examine them minutely, making haste to get past the 
village here collected, and out of hearing of the hammer 
which was laying the foundation of another Lowell on the 
banks. At the time of our voyage Manchester was a village 
of about 2000 inhabitants, where we landed for a moment to 
get some cool water, and where an inhabitant told us that he 
was accustomed to go across the river into Goffstown for 
his water. But now, after nine years, as I have been told 
and indeed have witnessed, it contains 16,000 inhabitants. 
From a hill on the road between ~Goffstown and Hooksett, 
four miles distant, I have since seen a thunder shower pass 



222 A WEEK. 

over, and the sun break out and shine on a city there, where 
I had landed nine years before in the fields to get a draught 
of water ; and there was waving the flag of its museum, where 
"the only perfect skeleton of a Greenland or river whale in 
the United States " was to be seen, and I also read in its di- 
rectory of a " Manchester Athenaeum and Gallery of the Fine 
Arts." 

According to the gazetteer, the descent of Amoskeag Falls, 
which are the most considerable in the Merrimac, is fifty-four 
feet in half a mile. We locked ourselves through here with 
much ado, surmounting the successive watery steps of this 
river's staircase in the midst of a crowd of villagers, jump- 
ing into the canal to their amusement, to save our boat from 
upsetting, and consuming much river water in our service. 
Amoskeag, or Namaskeak, is said to mean "great fishing 
place." It was hereabouts that the Sachem Wannalancet 
resided. Tradition says that his tribe, when at war with the 
Mohawks, concealed their provisions in the cavities of the 
rocks in the upper part of these falls. The Indians who hid 
their provisions in these holes, and affirmed "that God had 
cut them out for that purpose," understood their origin and 
use better than the Royal Society, who in their Transactions, 
in the last century, speaking of these very holes, declare 
that " they seem plainly to be artificial." Similar " pot. 
holes," may be seen at the Stone Flume on this river, on the 
Ottaway, at Bellows' Falls on the Connecticut, and in the 
limestone rock at Shelburne Falls on Deerfield River in 
Massachusetts, and more or less generally about all falls. 
Perhaps the most remarkable curiosity of this kind in New 
England is the well known Basin on the Pemigewasset, one 
of the head-waters of this river, twenty by thirty feet in ex- 
tent and proportionably deep, with a smooth and rounded 
brim, and filled with a cold, pellucid, and greenish water. At 
Amoskeag the river is divided into many separate torrents 
and trickling rills by the rocks, and its volume is so much 



WEDNESDAY. 2. '3 

reduced by the drain of the canals that it does not fill its bed. 
There are many pot-holes here on a rocky island which the 
river washes over in high freshets. As at Shelburne Falls, 
where I first observed them, they are from one foot to four 
or five in diameter, and as many in depth, perfectly round 
and regular, with smooth and gracefully curved brims, like 
goblets. Their origin is apparent to the most careless ob- 
server. A stone which the current has washed down, meet- 
ing with obstacles, revolves as on a pivot where it lies, gradu- 
ally sinking in the course of centuries deeper and deeper 
into the rock, and in new freshets receiving the aid of fresh 
stones which are drawn into this trap and doomed to revolve 
there for an indefinite period, doing Sisyphus like penance for 
stony sins, until they either wear out, or wear through the 
bottom of their prison, or else are released by some revo- 
lution of nature. There lie the stones of various sizes, from 
a pebble to a foot or two in diameter, some of which have 
rested from their labor only since the spring, and some 
higher up which have lain still and dry for ages, — we 
noticed some here at least sixteen feet above the present 
level of the water, — while others are still revolving, and 
enjoy no respite at any season. In one instance, at Shel- 
burne Falls, they have worn quite through the rock, so that 
a portion of the river leaks through in anticipation of the 
fall. Some of these pot-holes at Amoskeag, in a very hard 
broWn stone, had an oblong cylindrical stone of the same 
material loosely fitting them. One, as much as fifteen feet 
deep and seven or eight in diameter, which was worn quite 
through to the water, had a huge rock of the same material, 
smooth but of irregular form, lodged in it. Everywhere 
there were the rudiments or the wrecks of a dimple in the 
rock ; the rocky shells of whirlpools. As if, by force of ex- 
ample and sympathy after so many lessons, the rocks, the 
hardest material, had been endeavoring to whirl or flow into 
the forms of the most fluid. The finest workers in stone 



224 A WEEK. 

are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air 
and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance 
of time. 

Not only have some of these basins been forming for 
countless ages, but others exist which must have been com- 
pleted in a former geological period. There are some, we 
are told, in the town of Canaan in this State, with the stones 
still in them, on the height of land between the Merrimac 
and Connecticut, and nearly a thousand feet above these 
rivers, proving that the mountains and the rivers have 
changed places. There lie the stones which completed their 
revolutions perhaps before thoughts began to revolve in the 
brain of man. The periods of Hindoo and Chinese history, 
though they reach back though the time when the race of 
mortals is confounded with the race of gods, are as nothing 
compared with the periods which these stones have in- 
scribed. That which commenced a rock when timiC was 
young, shall conclude a pebble in the unequal contest. 
With such expense of time and natural forces are our very 
paving stones produced. They teach us lessons, these dumb 
workers ; verily there are " sermons in stones, and books in 
the running streams." In these very holes the Indians hid 
their provisions ; but now there is no bread, but only its old 
neighbor stones at the bottom. Who knows how many races 
they have served thus? By as simple a law, some acciden- 
tal by law, perchance, our system itself was made ready for 
its inhabitants. 

These, and such as these, must be our antiquities, for 
lack of human vestiges. The monuments of heroes and the 
temples of the gods which may once have stood on the banks 
of this river, are now, at any rate, returned to dust and 
primitive soil. The murmur of unchronicled nations has 
died away along these shores, and once more Lowell and 
Manchester are on the trail of the Indian. 

The fact that Romans once inhabited her reflects no little 



WEDNESDAY, 225 

dignity on Nature herself ; that from some particular hill 
the Roman once looked out on the sea. She need not be 
ashamed of the vestiges of her children. How gladly the 
antiquary informs us that their vessels penetrated into this 
frith, or up that river of some remote isle ! Their military 
monuments still remain on the hills and under the sod of 
the valleys. The oft-repeated Roman story is written in 
still legible characters in every quarter of the old world, and 
but to-day, perchance, a new coin is dug up whose inscrip- 
tion repeats and confirms their fame. Some '^ Judcea 
CaJ^ta," with a woman mourning under a palm tree, with 
silent argument and demonstration confirms the pages of 
history. 

Rome living was the world's sole ornament ; 

And dead is now the world's sole monument. 
****** 

With her own weight down pressed now she lies, 

And by her heaps her hugeness testifies. 

If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are 
not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see still 
upon the wall of the temple of Minerva the circular marks 
made by the shields taken from the enemy in the Persian war, 
which were suspended there. We have not far to seek for 
living and unquestionable evidence. The very dust takes 
shape and confirms some story which we had read. As Ful- 
ler said, commenting on the zeal of Camden, "A broken urn is 
a whole evidence ; or an old gate still surviving out of which 
the city is run out." When Solon endeavored to prove that 
Salamis had formerly belonged to the Athenians, and not 
to the Megareans, he caused the tombs to be opened, and 
showed that the inhabitants of Salamis turned the faces of 
their dead to the same side with the Athenians, but the Mega- 
reans to the opposite side. There they were to be inter- 
rogated. 

Some minds are as h'ttle logical or argumentative as 



226 A WEEK. 

nature ; they can offer no reason or "guess," but they ex- 
hibit the solemn and incontrovertible fact. If a historical 
question arises, they cause the tombs to be opened. Their 
silent and practical logic convinces the reason and the un- 
derstanding at the same time. Of such sort is always the 
only pertinent question and the only unanswerable reply. 

Our own country furnishes antiquities as ancient and 
durable, and as useful, as any ; rocks at least as well cov- 
ered with moss, and a soil which if it is virgin, is but vir- 
gin mold, the very dust of nature. What if we cannot read 
Rome, or Greece, Etruria, or Carthage, or Egypt, or Baby- 
lon, on these ; are our cliffs bare? The lichen on the rocks 
is a rude and simple shield which beginning and imperfect 
Nature suspended there. Still hangs her wrinkled trophy. 
And here, too, the poet's eye may still detect the brazen 
nails which fastened Time's inscriptions, and if he has the 
gift, decipher them by this clew. The walls that fence our 
fields, as well as modern Rome, and not less the Parthenon 
itself, are all built of ruins. Here may be heard the din of 
rivers, and ancient winds which have long since lost their 
names sough through our woods — the first faint sounds of 
spring, older than the summerof Athenian glory, the titmouse 
lisping in the wood, the jay's scream, and blue-bird's warble, 
and the hum of 

Bees that fly 
About the laughing blossoms of sallowy. 

Here is the gray dawn for antiquity, and our to morrow's 
future should be at least paulo-post to theirs which we have 
put behind us. There are the red maple and birchen leaves, 
old runes which are not yet deciphered ; catkins, pine cones, 
vines, oak leaves, and acorns ; the very things themselves, 
and not their forms in stone, — so much the more ancient 
and venerable. And even to the current summer there has 
come down tradition of a hoary-headed master of all art, 
who once filled every field and grove with statues and god- 



WEONESDAY. 227 

like architecture, of every design which Greece has lately 
copied ; whose ruins are now mingled with the dust, and 
not one block remains upon another. The century sun 
and unwearied rain have wasted them, till not one fragment 
from that quarry now exists ; and poets perchance will feign 
that gods sent down the material from heaven. 

What though the traveler tells us of the ruins of Egypt, are 
we so sick or idle, that we must sacrifice our America and 
to-day to some man's ill-remembered and indolent story ? 
Carnac and Luxor are but names, or if their skeletons remain, 
still more desert sand, and at length a wave of the IMedi- 
terranean Sea, are needed to wash away the filth that attaches 
to their grandeur. Carnac! Carnac! here is Carnac for me. 
I behold the columns of a larger and purer temple. 

This is my Carnac, whose unmeasured dome 
Shelters the measuring art and measurer's home. 
Behold these flowers, let us be up with time, 
Not dreaming of three thousand years ago, 
Erect ourselves and let those columns lie, 
Not stoop to raise a foil against the sky. 
Where is the spirit of that time but in 
This present day, perchance this present line ? 
Three thousand years ago are not agone. 
They are still lingering in this summer morn, 
And Memnon's Mother sprightly greets us now, 
Wearing her youthful radiance on her brow. 
If Carnac's columns still stand on the plain, 
To enjoy our opportunities they remain. 

In these parts dwelt the famous Sachem Passaconaway, 
who was seen by Gookin " at Pawtucket, when he was about 
one hundred and twenty years old." He was reputed a wise 
man and a powwow, and restrained his people from going to 
war with the English. They believed " that he could make 
water burn, rocks move, and trees dance, and metamorphose 
himself into a flaming man ; that in winter he could raise a 
green leaf out of the ashes of a dry one, and produce a liv- 



228 A WEEK. 

iiig snake from the skin of a dead one." In 1660, accord- 
ing to Gookin, at a great feast and dance, he made his fare- 
well speech to his people, in which he said that, as he was 
not likely to see them met together again, he would leave 
them this word of advice, to take heed how they quarreled 
with their English neighbors, for though they might do them 
much mischief at first, it would prove the means of their 
own destruction. He himself, he said, had been as much an 
enemy to the English at their first coming as any, and had 
used all his arts to destroy them, or at least to prevent their 
settlement, but could by no means effect it. Gookin thought 
that he " possibly might have such a kind of spirit upon him 
as was upon Balaam, who in Numbers xxiii 23, said : ' Surely, 
there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any 
divination against Israel.'" His son Wannalancet care- 
fully followed his advice, and when Philip's War broke out, 
he withdrew his followers to Penacook, now Concord, in 
New Hampshire, from the scene of the war. On his return 
afterward he visited the minister of Chelmsford, and, as is 
stated in the history of that town,'' wished to know whether 
Chelmsford had suffered much during the war ; and being 
informed that it had not, and that God should be thanked 
for it, Wannalancet replied, ' Me next.' " 

Manchester was the residence of John Stark, a hero of 
two wars, and survivor of a third, and at his death the last 
but one of the American generals of the Revolution. He 
was born in the adjoining town of Londonderry, then Nut- 
field, in 1728. As early as 1752, he was taken prisoner by 
the Indians while hunting in the wilderness near Baker's 
River ; he performed notable service as a captain of rangers 
in the French war ; commanded a regiment of the New 
Hampshire militia at the battle of Bunker Hill; and fought 
and won the battle of Bennington in 1777. He was past ser- 
vice in the last war, and died here in 1822, at the age of 
ninety-four. His monument stands upon the second bank 



WEDNESDAY. 229 

of the river, about a mile and a iialf above the falls, and 
commands a prospect several miles up and down the Merri- 
m:ic. It suggested how much more impressive in the land- 
scape is the tomb of a hero than the dwellings of the inglor- 
ious living. Who is most dead, — a hero by whose monu- 
ment you stand, or his descendants of whom you have never 
heard ? 

The graves of Passaconaway and Wannalancet are 
marked by no monument on the bank of their native river. 

Every town which we passed, if we may believe the gaz- 
etteer, had been the residence of some great man. But 
though we knocked at many doors, and even made particu- 
lar inquiries, we could not find that there were any now liv- 
ing. Under the head of Litchfield we read : 

"The Hon. Wyseman Clagett clo-ed his life in this town." Accord- 
ing to another, " He was a classical scholar, a good lawyer, a wit, and a 
poet." We saw his old gray house just below Great Nesenkeag Brook. 
Und-T the head of Merrimac, — "Hon. Mathew Thornton, one of the 
signers of the Declaration of American Independence, resided many years 
in this town." His house, too, we saw from the river. " Dr. Jonathan 
Gove, a man distinguished for his urbanity, his talents and professional 
skill resided in this town [Goflstown,] He was one of the oldest practi- 
tioners of medicine in the county. He was many years an active member 
of the legislature." "Hon. Robert Means, who died January 24, 1823, 
at the age of eighty, was for a long period a resident in Amherst. He 
was a native of Ireland. In 1764 he came to this country, where by his 
industry and application to business, he acquired a large property, and 
great respect." " William Stinson [one of the first settlers of Dunbarton], 
born in Ireland, came to Londonderry with his father. He was much 
respected and was a useful man. James Rogers was from Ireland, and 
father to Major Robert Rogers. He was shot in the woods, being mis- 
taken for a bear." " Rev. Matthew Clark, second minister of London- 
derry, was a native of Ireland, who had in early life been an officer in 
the army, and distinguished himself in the defense of the city of London- 
derry, when besieged by the army of King James II, A.D. 1688-89. 
He afterward relinquished a military life for the clerical profession. He 
possessed a strong mind, marked by a considerable degree of eccentricity. 
He died January 25, 1735, and was borne to the grave, at his particular 



230 A WEEK. 

request, by his former companions in arms, of whom there were a con- 
siderable number among the early settlers of this town ; several of whom 
had been made free from taxes throughout the British dominions by King 
William, for their bravery in that memorable siege." Col. George Reid 
and Capt. David M'Clary, also citizens of Londonderry, were "distin- 
guished and brave" officers. "Major Andrew M'Clary, a native of this 
town [Epsom], fell at the battle of Breed's Hill." Many of these heroes, 
like the illustrious Roman, were plowing when the news of the massacre 
at Lexington arrived, and straightway left their plows in the furrow, and 
repaired to the scene of action. Some miles from where we now were, 
there once stood a guide-board which said, " three miles to Squire Mac- 
Gaw"s." 

But generally speaking, the land is now, at any rate, very 
barren of men, and we doubt if there are as many hundreds 
as we read of. It may be that we stood too near. 

Uncannunuc Mountain in Goffstown was visible from 
Amoskeag", five or six miles westward. Its name is said to 
mean " The Two Breasts," there being two eminences some 
distance apart. The highest, which is about 1400 feet above 
the sea, probably affords a more extensive view of the 
Merrimac Valley and the adjacent country than any other 
hill, though it is somewhat obstructed by woods. Only a 
few short reaches of the river are visible, but you can trace 
its course far down stream by the sandy tracts on its banks. 

A little south of Uncannunuc, about sixty years ago, as 
the story goes, an old woman who went out to gather 
pennyroyal, tripped her foot in the bail of a small brass ket- 
tle in the dead grass and bushes. Some say that flints and 
charcoal and some traces of a camp were also found. This 
kettle, holding about four quarts, is still preserved and 
used to dye thread in. It is supposed to have belonged 
to some old French or Indian hunter, who was killed in one 
of his hunting or scouting excursions, and so never returned 
to look after his kettle. 

But we were most interested to hear of the pennyroyal, it 
is so soothing to be reminded that wild nature proiduces any- 



WKDNESDAY. 231 

thing ready for the use of man. Men know that soi/iet/iing 
is good. One says that i*; is yellow-dock, another that it is 
bitter-sweet, another that it is slippery-elm bark, burdock, 
catnip, calamint, elicampane, throughwort, or pennyroyal. 
A man may esteem himself happy when that which is his 
food is also his medicine. There is no kind of herb that 
grows, but somebody or other says that it is good. I am very 
glad to hear it. It reminds me of the first chapter of 
Genesis. But how should they know that itis good ? That 
is the mystery to me. I am always agreeably disappointed ; 
it is incredible that they should have found it out. Since 
all things are good, men fail at last to distinguish which is 
the bane, and which the antidote. There are sure to be 
two prescriptions diametrically opposite. Stuff a cold and 
starve a cold are but two ways. They are the two practices, 
both always in full blast. Yet you must take advice of the 
one school as if there was no other. In respect to religion 
and the healing art, all nations are still in a state of barbar- 
ism. In the most civilized countries the priest is still but a 
Powwow, and the physician a Great Medicine. Consider the 
deference which is everywhere paid to a doctor's opinion. 
Nothing more strikingly betrays the credulity of mankind 
than medicine. Quackery is a thing universal, and univers- 
ally successful. In this case it becomes literally true that no 
imposition is too great for the credulity of men. Priests and 
physicians should never look one another in the face. They 
have no common ground, nor is there any to mediate be- 
tween them. When the one comes, the other goes. They 
could not come together without laughter, or a significant 
silence, for the one's profession is a satire on the other's, 
and cither's success would be the other's failure. It is 
wonderful that the physician should ever die, and that the 
priest should ever live. Why is it that the priest is never 
called to consult with the physician ? Itis because men be- 
lieve practically that matter is independent of spirit. But 



232 A WEEK. 

what is quackery? It is conimunly an attempt to cure the 
diseases of a man by addressing his body alone. There 
is need of a physician who shall minister to both soul and 
body at once, that is, to man. Now he falls between two 
stools. 

After passing through the locks, we had poled ourselves 
through the canal here, about half a mile in length, to the 
boatable part of the river. Above Amoskeag the river 
spreads out into a lake reaching a mile or two without a 
bend. There were many canal-boats here bound up to 
Hooksett, about eight miles, and as they were going up 
empty with a fair wind, one boatman offered to take us in 
tow if we would wait. But when we came alongside, we 
found that they meant to take us on board, since otherwise 
we should clog their motions too much ; but as our boat 
was too heavy to be lifted aboard, we pursued our way up 
the stream, as before, while the boatmen were at their din- 
ner, and came to anchor at length under some alders on 
the opposite shore, where we could take our lunch. Though 
far on one side every sound was wafted over to us from the 
opposite bank, and from the harbor of the canal, and we 
could see everything that passed. By and by came several 
canal-boats, at intervals of a quarter of a mile, standing up 
to Hooksett with a light breeze, and one by one disappeared 
round a point above. With their broad sails set, they 
moved slowly up the stream in the sluggish and fitful breeze, 
like one-winged antediluvian birds, and as if impelled by 
some mysterious counter current. It was a grand motion, 
so slow and stately, this " standing out," as the phrase is, 
expressing the gradual and steady progress of a vessel, as 
if it were by mere rectitude and disposition, without shuf. 
fling. Their sails, which stood so still, were like chips cast 
into the current of the air to show which way it set. At 
length the boat which we had spoken came along, keeping 
the middle of the stream, and when within speaking dis- 



WEDNESDAY. 233 

tance the steersman called out ironically to say, that if we 
would come alongside now he would take us in tow ; but 
not heeding his taunt, we still loitered in the shade till we 
had finished our lunch, and when the last boat had disap- 
peared round the point with flapping sail, for the breeze 
had now sunk to a zephyr, with our own sails set, and ply- 
ing our oars, we shot rapidly up the stream in pursuit, and 
as we glided close alongside, while they were vainly invok- 
ing ^'Eolus to their aid, we returned their compliment by 
proposing, if they would throw us a rope, to "take them in 
tow," to which these Merrimac sailors had no suitable an- 
swer ready. Thus we gradually overtook each boat in suc- 
cession until we had the river to ourselves again. Our 
course this afternoon was between Manchester and Goffs- 
town. 

FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIP. 

While we float here, far from that tributary stream on 
whose banks our friends and kindred dwell, our thoughts, 
like the stars, come out of their horizon still ; for there cir- 
culates a finer blood than Lavoisier has discovered the laws 
of, — the blood, not of kindred merely, but of kindness, whose 
pulse still beats at any distance and forever. After years of 
vain familiarity, some distant gesture or unconscious be- 
havior, which we remember, speaks to us with more emphasis 
than the wisest or kindest words. We are sometimes made 
aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have 
been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure 
and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds 
of heaven unnoticed ; when they treated us not as what we 
were, but as what we aspired to be. There has just reached 
u^, it may be, the nobleness of some such silent behavior, 
not to be forgotton, not to be remembered, and we shudder 
to think how it fell on us cold, though in some true but 
tardy hour we endeavor to wipe off these scores. 



234 ^ WEEK. 

In my experience, persons, when they are made the sub- 
ject of conversation, though with a friend, are commonly the 
most prosaic and trivial of facts. The universe seems bank- 
rupt as soon as we begin to discuss the character of indi- 
viduals. Our discourse all runs to slander, and our limits 
grow narrower as we advance. How is it that we are im- 
pelled to treat our friends so ill when we obtain new ones? 
The housekeeper says, I never had any new crockery in my life 
but I began to break the old. I say, let us speak of mush- 
rooms and forest trees rather. Yet we can sometimes afford 
to remember them in private. 

Lately, alas, I knew a gentle boy, 

Whose features all were cast in Virtue's mold, 

As one she had designed for Beauty's toy, 

But after manned him for her own stronghold. 

On every side he open was as day. 

That you might see no lack of strength within, 

For walls and ports do only serve alway 
For a pretense to feebleness and sin. 

Say not that Caesar was victorious, 

With toil and strife who stormed the House of Fame, 
In other sense this youth was glorious, 

Himself a kingdom wheresoe'er he came. 

No strength went out to get him victory, 

When all was income of its own accord ; 
For where he went none other was to see, 

But all were parcel of their noble lord. 

He forayed like the subtile haze of summer, 
That stilly shows fresh landscapes to our eyes, 

And revolution works without a murmur. 
Or rustling of a leaf beneath the skies. 

So was I taken unawares by this, 

I quite forgot my homage to confess ; 
Yet now am forced to know, though hard it is, 

I mieht have loved him had I loved him less. 



WEDNESDAY. 235 

Each moment as we nearer drew to each, 

A stern respect withheld us further yet, 
So that we seemed beyond each other's reach, 

And less acquainted than when first we met. 

We two were one while we did sympathize. 

So could we not the simplest bargain drive ; 
And what avails it now that we are wise, 

If absence doth this doubleness contrive ? 

Eternity may not the chance repeat. 

But I must tread my single way alone. 
In sad remembrance that we once did meet, 

And know that bliss irrevocably gone. 

The spheres henceforth my elegy shall sing, 

For elegy has other subject none ; 
Each strain of music in my ears shall ring 

Knell of departure from that other one. - 

Make haste and celebrate my tragedy ; 

With fitting strain resound ye woods and fields ; 
Sorrow is dearer in such case to me 

Than all the joys other occasion yields. 



Is't then too late the damage to repair? 

Distance, forsooth, from my weak grasp hath reft 
The empty husk, and clutched the useless tare. 

But in my hands the wheat and kernel left. 

If I but love that virtue which he is. 

Though it be scented in the morning air, 
Still shall we be truest acquaintances. 

Nor mortals know a sympathy more rare. 

Friendship is evanescent in every man's experience, and 
remembered like heat Ughtning in past summers. Fair and 
flitting nice a summer cloud ; there is always some vapor 
in the air, no matter how long the drought ; there are even 
April showers. Surely from time to time, for its vestiges 
never depart, it floats through our atmosphere. It takes 
place, like vegetation in so many materials, because there is 



236 A WEEK. 

such a law, but always without permanent form, though an- 
cient and familiar as the sun and moon, and as sure to come 
again. The heart is forever inexperienced. The}' silently 
gather as by magic, these never failing, never quiet deceiv- 
ing visions, like the bright and fleecy clouds in the calmest 
and clearest days. The Friend is some fair floating isle' of 
palms eluding the mariner in Pacific seas. Many are the 
dangers to be encountered, equinoctial gales and coral reefs 
ere he may sail before the constant trades. But who would 
not sail through mutiny and storm, even over Atlantic waves, 
to reach the fabulous retreating shores of some continent 
man ? The imagination still clings to the faintest tradition 
of 

THE ATLANTIDES. 

The smothered streams of love, which flow 

More bright than Phlegethon, more low, 

Island us ever, like the sea, 

In an Atlantic mystery. 

Our fabled shores none ever reach, 

No mariner has found our beach, 

Only our mirage now is seen, 

And neighboring waves with floating green, 

Yet still the oldest charts contain 

Some dotted outline of our main ; 

In ancient times midsummer days 

Unto the western islands' gaze, 

To Teneriffe and the Azores, 

Have shown our faint and cloud-like shores. 

But sink not yet, ye desolate isles, 
Anon your coast with commerce smiles, 
And richer freights ye'll furnish far 
Than Africa or Malabar. 
Be fair, be fertile evermore. 
Ye rumored but untrodden shore, 
Princes and monarchs will contend 
Who first unto your land shall send. 
And pawn the jewels of the crown 
To call your distant soil their own. 



WEDNESDAY. 237 

Columbus has sailed westward of these isles by the 
mariner's compass, but neither he nor his successors have 
found them. We are no nearer than Plato was. The 
earnest seeker and hopeful discoverer of this New World 
always haunts the outskirts of his time, and walks through 
the densest crowd uninterrupted, and as it were in a 
straight line. 

Sea and land are but his neighbors, 

And companions in his labors, 

Who on the ocean's verge and firm land's end 

Doth long and truly seek his Friend. 

Many men dwell far inland. 

But he alone sits on the strand. 

Whether he ponders men or books, 

Always still he seaward looks, 

Marine news he ever reads. 

And the slightest glances heeds, 

Feels the sea breeze on his cheek 

At each word the landsmen speak, 

In every companion's eye 

A sailing vessel doth descry ; 

In the ocean's sullen roar 

From some distant port he hears, 

Of wrecks upon a distant shore. 

And the ventures of past years. 

Who does not walk on the plain as amid the columns of 
Tadmore of the desert ? There is on the earth no institu- 
tion which Friendship has established ; it is not taught by 
any religion ; no scripture contains its maxims. It has no 
temple, nor even a solitary column. There goes a rumor 
that the earth is inhabited, but the shipwrecked mariner 
has not seen a foot-print on the shore. The hunter has 
found only fragments of pottery and the monuments of in- 
habitants. 

However, our fates at least are social. Our courses do 
not diverge ; but as the web of destiny is woven it is 
fulled, and we are cast more and more into the center. 



238 A WEEK. 

Men naturally, though feebly, seek this alliance, and their 
actions faintly foretell it. We are inclined to lay the chief 
stress on likeness and not on difference, and in foreign 
bodies we admit that there are many degrees of warmth 
below blood heat, but none of cold above it. 

One or two persons come to my house from time to time, 
there being proposed to them the faint possibility of inter- 
course. They are as full as they are silent, and wait for 
my plectrum to stir the strings of their lyre. If they could 
ever come to the length of a sentence, or hear one, on that 
ground they are dreaming of ! They speak faintly, and do 
not obtrude themselves. They have heard some news, 
which none, not even they themselves, can impart. It is a 
wealth they bear about them which can be expended in 
various ways. What came they out to seek ? 

No word is oftener on the lips of men than Friendship, 
and indeed no thought is more familiar to their aspirations. 
All men are dreaming of it, and its drama, which is always 
a tragedy, is enacted daily. It is the secret of the universe. 
You may thread the town, you may wander the country, 
and none shall ever speak of it, yet thought is everywhere 
busy about it, and the idea of what is possible in this re- 
spect affects our behavior toward all new men and women, 
and a great many old ones. Nevertheless, I can remem- 
ber only two or three essays on this subject in all liter- 
ature. No wonder that the Mythology, and Arabian 
Nights, and Shakespeare, and Scott's novels, entertain us, — 
we are poets and fablers and dramatists and novelists our- 
selves. We are continually acting a part in a more interest- 
ing drama than any written. We are dreaming that our 
Friends are our Friends, and that we are our Friends' 
Friends. Our actual Friends are but distant relations of 
those to whom we are pledged. We never exchange more 
than three words with a Friend in our lives on that level to 



WEDNESDAY. 239 

which our thoughts and feelings almost habitually rise. 
One goes forth prepared to say " Sweet Friends ! " and 
the salutation is " Damn your eyes ! " But never mind ; 
faint heart never won true Friend. O my Friend, may it 
come to pass, once, that when you are my Friend I may be 
yours. 

Of what use the friendliest disposition even, if there are 
no hours given to Friendship, if it is forever postponed to 
unimportant duties and relations ? Friendship is first. 
Friendship last. But it is equally impossible to forget our 
Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they 
say farewell, then indeed we begin to keep them company. 
How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual 
Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins. I 
would that I were worthy to be any man's Friend. 

What is commonly honored with the name of Friendship 
is no very profound or powerful instinct. Men do not, after 
all, love their Friends greatly. I do not often see the 
farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by 
their Friendship for one another. They are not often 
transfigured and translated by love in each other's presence. 
I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the 
love of a man. If one abates a little the price of his wood, 
or gives a neighbor his vote at town-meeting, or a barrel of 
apples, or lends him his wagon frequently, it is esteemed a 
rare instance of Friendship. Nor do the farmer's wives 
lead lives consecrated to Friendship. I do not see the pair 
of farmer Friends of either sex prepared to stand against 
the world. There are only two or three couples in history. 
To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more 
than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate 
only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of 
Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need, by 
his substance, or his influence, or his council ; but he who 
foresees such advantage in this relation proves himself blind 



240 A WEEK. 

to its real advantage, or indeed wholly inexperienced in the 
relation itself. Such services are particular and menial, 
compared with the perpetual and all-embracing service 
which it is. Even the utmost good will and harmony and 
practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for 
Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in 
melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our 
bodies, — neighbors are kind enough for that, — but to do the 
like office to our spirits. For this few are rich enough, 
however well disposed they may be. 

Think of the importance of Friendship in the education 
of men. It will make a man honest ; it will make him a 
hero ; it will make him a saint. It is the state of the just 
dealing with the just, the magnanimous with the magnani- 
mous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man. 

Why love among the virtues is not known, 

Is that love is them all contract in one. 
All the abuses which are the object of reform with the phil- 
anthropist, the statesman, and the housekeeper, are uncon- 
sciously amended in the intercourse of Friends. A Friend 
is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting 
from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us. 
Intakes two to speak the truth, — one to speak, and another 
to hear. How can one treat with magnanimity mere wood 
and stone ? If we dealt only with the false and dishonest, 
we should at last forget how to speak truth. In our daily 
intercourse with men, our nobler faculties are dormant and 
suffered to rust. None will pay us the compliment to ex- 
pect nobleness from us. We ask our neighbor to suffer 
himself to be dealt with truly, sincerely, nobly ; but he 
answers no by his deafness. He does not even hear this 
prayer. He says practically: I will be content if you treat me 
as no better than I should be, as deceitful, mean, dishonest, 
and selfish. For the most part, we are contented so to deal 
iind to be dealt with, and we do not think that for the mass 



WEDNESDAY. 24! 

of men there is any truer and nobler relation possible. A 
man may have good neighbors, so called, and acquaintances, 
and even companions, wife, parents, brothers, sisters, chil- 
dren, who meet himself and oneanotheron this ground only. 
The State does not demand justice of its members, but 
thinks that it succeeds very well with the least degree of it, 
hardly more than rogues practice ; and so do the family 
and the neighborhood. What is commonly called Friend- 
ship even is only a little more honor among rogues. 

But sometimes we are said to /t??r another, that is, to stand 
in a true relation to him, so that we give the best to, and 
receive the best from, him. Between whom there is hearty 
truth there is love ; and in proportion to our truthfulness 
and confidence in one another, our lives are divine and mi- 
raculous, and answer to our ideal. There are passages of 
affection in our intercourse with mortal men and women, 
such as no prophecy had taught us to expect, which trans- 
cend our earthly life, and anticipate heaven for us. What is 
this Love that may come right into the middle of a prosaic 
Goffstown day, equal to any of the gods ? that discovers a 
new world, fair and fresh and eternal, occupying the place 
of this old one, when to the common eye a dust has settled 
on the universe? which world cannot else be reached, and 
does not exist. What other words, we may almost ask, are 
memorable and worthy to be repeated than those which 
love has inspired ? It is wonderful that they were ever 
uttered. They are few and rare, indeed, but, like a strain of 
music, they are incessantly repeated and modulated by the 
memory. All other words crumble off with the stucco which 
overlies the heart. We should not dare to repeat them now 
aloud. We are not competent to hear them at all times. 

The books for young people say a great deal about the 
selection of Friends ; it is because they really have nothing 
to say about Friends. They mean associates and confidants 
merely. " Know that the contrariety of foe and Friend 



242 A WEEK. 

proceeds from God." Friendship takes place between those 
who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly 
natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances 
will avail. Even speech, at first, necessarily has nothing to 
do with it; but it follows after silence, as the buds in the 
graft do not put forth into leaves till long after the graft has 
taken. It is a drama in which the parties have no part to 
act. We are all Mussulmans and fatalists in this respect. 
Impatient and uncertain lovers think that they must say 
or do something kind whenever they meet ; they must never 
be cold. But they who are Friends, do not do what they 
think they must, but what they fuiist. Even their Friend- 
ship is in one sense but a sublime phenomenon to them. 

The true and not despairing Friend will address his 
Friend in some such terms as these : 

" I never asked thy leave to let me love thee, — I have a 
right. I love thee not as something private and personal, 
which \% your otvn, but as something universal and worthy of 
love, which I have found. O howl think of you ! You are 
purely good, — you are infinitely good. I can trust you 
forever. I did not think that humanity was so rich. Give 
me an opportunity to live." 

" You are the fact in a fiction, — you are the truth more 
strange and admirable than fiction. Consent only to be 
what you are. I alone will never stand in your way." 

" This is what I would like, — to be as intimate with you 
as our spirits are intimate,— respecting you as I respect my 
ideal. Never to profane one another by word or action, 
even by a thought. Between us, if necessary, let there be 
no acquaintance." 

" I have discovered you : how can you be concealed from 
me ? " 

The Friend asks no return but that his Friend will relig- 
iously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of 



WEDNESDAY. 243 

him. They cherish each other's hopes. They are kind to 
each other's dreams. 

Though the poet says, " 'Tis the pre-eminence of Friend- 
ship to impute excellence," yet we can never praise our 
Friend, nor esteem him praiseworthy, nor let him think that he 
can please us by any behavior, or ever treat us well enough. 
That kindness which has so good a reputation elsewhere 
can least of all consist with this relation, and no such affront 
can be offered to a Friend, as a conscious good will, a 
friendliness which is not a necessity of the Friend's na- 
ture. 

The sexes are naturally most strongly attracted to one 
another, by constant constitutional differences, and are most 
commonly and surely the complements of one another. 
How natural and easy it is for man to secure the attention 
of woman to what interests himself. Men and women of 
equal culture, thrown together, are sure to be of a certain 
value to one another, more than men to men. There exists 
already a natural disinterestedness and liberality in such 
society, and I think that any man will more confidently carry 
his favorite book to read to some circle of intelligent women, 
than to one of his own sex. The visit of man to man is 
wont to be an interruption, but the sexes naturally expect 
one another. Yet Friendship is no respecter of sex ; and 
perhaps it is more rare between the sexes, than between two 
of the same sex. 

Friendship is, at any rate, a relation of perfect equality. 
It cannot well spare any outward sign of equal obligation 
and advantage. The nobleman can never have a Friend 
among his retainers, nor the king among his subjects. Not 
that the parties to it are in all respects equal, but they are 
equal in all that respects or affects their Friendship. The 
one's love is exactly balanced and represented by the other's. 
Persons are only the vessels which contain the nectar, and 
the hydrostatic paradox is the symbol of love's law. It finds 



244 ^ WEEK. 

its level and rises to its fountain-head in all breasts, and its 
slenderest column balances the ocean. 

Love equals swift and slow, 

And high and low 
Racer and lame, 

The hunter and his game. 

The one sex is not, in this respect, more tender than the 
other. A hero's love is as delicate as a maiden's. 

Confucius said, " Never contract Friendship with a man 
that is not better than thyself." It is the merit and preserva- 
tion of Friendship, that it takes place on a level higher than 
the actual characters of the parties would seem to warrant. 
The rays of light come to us in such a curve that every 
man whom we meet appears to be taller than he actually is. 
Such foundation has civility. My Friend is that one whom 
I can associate with my choicest thought. I always assign 
to him a nobler employment in my absence than I ever find 
him engaged in ; and I imagine that the hours which he de- 
votes to me were snatched from a higher society. The 
sorest insult which I never received from a Friend was, 
when he behaved with the license which only long and cheap 
acquaintance allows to one's faults, in my presence, without 
shame, and still addressed me in friendly accents. Beware, 
lest thy Friend learn at last to tolerate one frailty of thine, 
and so an obstacle be raised to the progress of thy love. 

Friendship is never established as an understood relation. 
Do you demand that I be less your Friend that you may 
know it ? Yet what right have I to think that another cher- 
ishes so rare a sentiment for me ? It is a miracle which re- 
quires constant proofs. It is an exercise of the purest imag- 
ination and the rarest faith. It says by a silent but eloquent 
behavior, — " I will be so related to thee as thou canst 
imagine ; even so thou mayest believe. I will spend truth — 
all my wealth on thee," — and the Friend responds silently 
through his nature and life, and treats his Friend with the 



WEDNESDAY. 245 

some divine courtesy. He l^novvs us literally through thick 
and thin. He never asks for a sign of love, but can distin- 
guish it by the features which it naturally wears. We never 
need to stand upon ceremony with him with regard to his 
visits. Wait not till I invite thee, but observe that I am glad 
to see thee when thou comest. It would be paying too dear 
for thy visit to ask for it. Where my Friend lives there are 
all riches and every attraction, and no slight obstacle can 
keep me from him. Let me never have to tell thee what I 
have not to tell. Let our intercourse be wholly above our- 
selves, and draw us up to it. The language of Friendship is 
not words but meanings. It is an intelligence above lan- 
guage. One imagines endless conversations with his Friend, 
in which the tongue shall be loosed, and thoughts be spoken 
without hesitancy, or end ; but the experience is commonly 
far otherwise. Acquaintance may come and go, and have 
a word ready for every occasion ; but what puny word shall 
he utter whose very breath is thought and meaning ? 
Suppose you go to bid farewell to your Friend who is setting 
out on a journey ; what other outward sign do you know of 
than to shake his hand ? Have you any palaver ready for 
him then ? any box of salve to commit to his pocket ? any 
particular message to send by him ? any statement which 
you had forgotten to make ? — as if you could forget any- 
thing. No, it is much that you take his hand and say Fare- 
well ; that you could easily omit ; so far custom has pre- 
vailed. It is even painful, if he is to go, that he should 
linger so long. If he must go, let him go quickly. Have 
you any last words ? Alas, it is only the word of words, 
which you have so long sought and found not ; you have 
not a first word yet. There are few even whom I should 
venture to call earnestly by their most proper names. A 
name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to 
whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, 
he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service. 



246 A WEEIv, 

The violence of love is as much to be dreaded as that of 
hate. When it is durable it is serene and equable. Even 
its famous pains begin only with the ebb of love, for few are 
indeed lovers, though all would fain be. It is one proof of a 
man's fitness for Friendship that he is able to do without 
that which is cheap and passionate. A true Friendship is as 
wise as it is tender. The parties to it yield implicitly to 
the guidance of their love, and know no other law nor kind- 
ness. It is not extravagant and insane, but what it says is 
something established henceforth, and will bear to be ster- 
eotyped. It is a truer truth, it is better and fairer news, and 
no time will ever shame it, or prove it false. This is a plant 
which thrives best in a temperate zone, where summer and 
winter alternate with one another. The Friend is a neces- 
sariiis, and meets his Friend on homely ground ; not on 
carpets and cushions, but on the ground and on rocks they 
will sit, obeying the natural and primitive laws. They will 
meet without any outcry, and part without loud sorrow. 
Their relation implies such qualities as the warrior prizes ; 
for it takes a valor to open the hearts of men as well as the 
gates of cities. 

The Friendship which Wawatam testified for Henry the 
fur-trader, as described in the latter's " Adventures," so al- 
most bare and leafless, yet not blossomless nor fruitless, is 
remembered with satisfaction and security. The stern im- 
pertubable warrior, after fasting, solitude, and mortification 
of body, comes to the white man's lodge, and affirms that he is 
the white brother whom he saw in his dream, and adopts him 
henceforth. He buries the hatchet as it regards his Friend, 
and they hunt and feast and make maple-sugar together. 
" Metals unite from fluxility ; birds and beasts from motives 
of convenience ; fools from fear and stupidity ; and just 
men at sight." If Wawatam would taste the " white man's 
milk" with his tribe, or take his bowl of human broth 
made of the trader's fellow-countrymen, he first finds a 



WEDNESDAY. 247 

place of safety for his Friend, whom he has rescued from a 
similar fate. At length, after a long winter of undisturbed 
and happy intercourse in the family of the chieftain in the 
wilderness, hunting and fishing, they return in the spring- 
to Michilimackinac to dispose of their furs ; and it becomes 
necessary for Wawatam to take leave of his Friend at the 
Isle aux Outardes, when the latter, to avoid his enemies 
proceeded to the Sault de Sainte Marie, supposing that they 
were to be separated for a short time only. " We now ex- 
changed farewells," says Henry, " with an emotion entirely 
reciprocal. I did not quit the lodge without the most 
grateful sense of the many acts of goodness which I had ex- 
perienced in it, nor without the sincerest respect for the vir- 
tues which I had witnessed among its members. All the 
family accompanied me to the beach ; and the canoe had 
no sooner put off than Wawatam commenced an address to 
the Kichi Manito, beseeching him to take care of me, his 
brother, till we should next meet. We had proceeded to too 
great distance to allow of our hearing his voice, before 
Wawatam had ceased to offer up his prayers." We never 
hear of him again. 

Friendship is not so kind as is imagined ; it has not much 
human blood in it, but consists with a certain disregard for 
men and their erections, the Christian duties and humani- 
ties, while it purifies the air like electricity. There may be 
the sternest tragedy in the relation of two more than usually 
innocent and true to their highest instincts. We may call it 
an essentially heathenish intercourse, free and irresponsible 
in its nature, and practicing all the virtues gratuitously. It 
is not the highest sympathy merely, but a pure and lofty 
society, a fragmentary and godlike intercourse of ancient 
date, still kept up at intervals, which, remembering itself, 
does not hesitate to disregard the humbler rights and duties 
of humanity. It requires immaculate and godlike qualities 
full grown, and exists at all only by condescension and an- 



248 A WEEK. 

ticipation of the remotest future. We love nothing which is 
merely good and not fair, if such a thing is possible. Nature 
puts some kind of blossom before every fruit, not simply a 
cali.x behind it. When the Friend comes out of his heathen- 
ism and superstition, and breaks his idols, being conveited 
by the precepts of a newer testament ; when he forgets his 
mythology, and treats his Friend like a Christian, or as he 
can afford ; then Friendship ceases to be Friendship, and 
becomes charity : that principle which established the alms- 
house is now beginning with its charity at home, and es- 
tablishing an almshouse and pauper relation there. 

As for the number which this society admits, it is at any 
rate to be begun with one, the noblest and greatest that we 
know, and whether the world will ever carry it farther, 
whether, as Chaucer affirms. 

There be mo sterres in the skie than a pair, 
remains to be proved ; 

And certaine he is well begone 
Among a thousand that findeth one. 

We shall not surrender ourselves heartily to any while we 
are conscious that another is more deserving of our love. 
Yet Friendship does not stand for numbers ; the Friend 
does not count his Friends on his fingers ; they are not numer- 
able. The more there are included by this bond, if they are 
indeed included, the rarer and diviner the quality of the 
love that binds them. I am ready to believe that as pri- 
vate and intimate a relation may exist by which three are 
embraced, as between two. Indeed we cannot have too many 
friends ; the virtue which we appreciate we to some extent 
appropriate, so that thus we are made at last more fit for 
every relation of life. A base Friendship is of a narrowing 
and exclusive tendency, but a noble one is not exclusive ; its 
very superfluity and dispersed love is the humanity which 



WEDNESDAY. 



249 



sweetens society, and sympathizes with foreign nations; for 
though its foundations are private, it is in effect a public 
affair and a public advantage, and the Friend, mere than 
the father of a family, deserves well of the state. 

The only danger in Friendship is that it will end. It is 
a delicate plant though a native. The least unworthiness, 
even if it be unknown to one's self, vitiates it. Let the 
Friend know that those faults which he observes in his 
Friend his own faults attract. There is no rule more invari- 
able than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what 
we suspected. By our narrowness and prejudices we say I 
will have so much and such for you, my Friend, no more. 
Perhaps there are none charitable, none disinterested, none 
wise, noble, and heroic enough, for a true and lasting Friend- 
ship. 

I sometimes hear my Friends complain finely that I do 
not appreciate their fineness. I shall not tell them whether 
I do or not. As if they expected a vote of thanks for 
every fine thing which they uttered or did. Who knows 
but it was finely appreciated. It may be that your silence 
was the finest thing of the two. There are some things 
which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept 
silent about. To the highest communications we only lend 
a silent ear. Our finest relations are not simply kept 
silent about, but buried under a positive depth of silence, 
never to be revealed. It may be that we are not even yet 
acquainted. In human intercourse the tragedy begins, 
not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when 
silence is not understood. Then there can never be an ex- 
planation. What avails it that another loves you, if he 
does not understand you ? Such love is a curse. What 
sort of companions are they who are presuming always that 
their silence is more expressive than yours ? How foolish, 
and inconsiderate, and unjust, to conduct as if you were 



250 A WEEK. 

the only party aggrieved ! Has not your Friend always 
equal ground of complaint ? No doubt my Friends some- 
times speak to me in vain, but they do not know what 
tilings I hear which they are not aware that they have 
spoken. I know that I have frequently disappointed them 
by not giving them words when they expected them, or 
such as they expected. Whenever I see my Friend 1 
speak to him, but the expector, the man with the ears, is 
not he. They will complain too that you are hard. O ye 
that would have the cocoa nut wrong side outward, when 
next I weep I will let you know. They ask for words and 
deeds, when a true relation is word and deed. If they 
know not of these things, how can they be informed ? We 
often forbear to confess our feelings, not from pride, but 
for fear that we could not continue to love the one who re- 
quired us to give such proof of our affection. 

I know a woman who possesses a restless and intelligent 
mind, interested in her own culture, and earnest to enjoy 
the highest possible advantages, and I meet her with 
])leasure as a natural person who not a little provokes me, 
and I suppose is stimulated in turn by myself. Yet our 
acquaintance plainly does not attain to that degree of con- 
fidence and sentiment which women, which all, in fact, 
covet. I am glad to help her, as I am helped by her; I 
like very well to know her with a sort of stranger's privi- 
lege, and hesitate to visit her often, like her other Friends. 
My nature pauses here, I do not well know why. Perhaps 
she does not make the highest demand on me, a religious 
demand. Some, with whose prejudices or peculiar bias I 
have no sympathy, yet inspire me with confidence, and I 
trust that they confide in me also as a religious heathen 
at least, — a good Greek. I, too, have principles as well 
founded as their own. If this person could conceive that, 
without willfulness, I associate with her as far as our des- 
tinies are coincident, as far as our Good Geniuses permit, 



WEDNESDAY. 25 I 

and still value such intercourse, it would be a grateful 
assurance to me. J feel as if I appeared careless, in- 
different, and without principle to her, not expecting more, 
and yet not content with less. If she could know that I 
make an infinite demand on myself, as well as on all others 
she would see that this true though incomplete intercourse 
is infinitely better than a more unreserved but falsely 
grounded one, without the principle of growth in it. For a 
companion, I require one who will make an equal demand 
on me with my own genius. Such a one will always be 
rightly tolerant. It is suicide and corrupts good manners 
to welcome any less than this. I value and trust those who 
love and praise my aspiration rather than my performance. 
If you would not stop to look at me, but look whither I am 
looking and further, then my education could not dispense 
with your company. 

My love must be as free 

As is the eagle's wing, 
Hovering o'er land and sea 

And everything. 

I must not dim my eye 

In thy saloon, 
I must not leave my sky 

And nightly moon. 

Be not the fowler's net 

Which stays my flight. 
And craftily is set 

T' allure the sight. 

But be the favoring gale 

That bears me on, 
And still doth fill my sail 

When thou art gone. 

I cannot leave my sky 
For thy caprice, 



252 A WEEK. 

True love would soar as high 
As heaven is. 

The eagle would not brook 

Her mate thus won, 
Who trained his eye to look 

Beneath the sun. 

Nothing is so difficult as to help a Friend in matters which 
do not require the aid of Friendship, but only a cheap and 
trivial service, if your Friendship wants the basis of a 
thorough practical acquaintance. I stand in the friendliest 
relation, on social and spiritual grounds, to one who does 
not perceive what practical skill I have, but when he seeks 
my assistance in such matters, is wholly ignorant of that 
one whom he deals with : does not use my skill, which in 
such matters is much greater than his, but only my hands. 
I know another, who, on the contrary, is remarkable for his 
discrimination in this respect ; who knows how to make use 
of the talents of others when he does not possess the same ; 
knows when not to look after or oversee, and stops short at 
his man. It is a rare pleasure to serve him, which all 
laborers know. I am not a little pained by the other kind 
of treatment. It is as if, after the friendliest and most 
ennobling intercourse, your Friend should use you as a 
hammer and drive a nail with your head, all in good faith • 
notwithstanding that you are a tolerable carpenter, as well 
as his good Friend, and would use a hammer cheerfully 
in his service. This want of perception is a defect which 
all the virtues of the heart cannot supply. 

The Good how can we trust ? 
Only the Wise are just 
The Good we use, 
The Wise we cannot choose. 
These there are none above ; 
The Good they know and love, 
But are not known again 
By those of lesser ken. 



WEDNESDAY. 253 

They do not charm us with their eyes, 
But they transfix with their advice ; 
No partial sympathy they feel 
With private woe or private weal, 
But with the universe joy and sigh. 
Whose knowledge is their sympathy. 

Confucius said, " To contract ties of Friendship with any 
one, is to contract Friendship with his virtue. There 
ought not to be any other motive in Friendship." But 
men wish us to contract Friendship with their vice also. I 
have a Friend who wishes me to see that to be right which 
I know to be wrong. But if Friendship is to rob me of my 
eyes, if it is to darken the day, I will have none of it. It 
should be expansive and inconceivably liberalizing in its 
effects. True Friendship can afford true knowledge. It 
does not depend on darkness and ignorance. A want of 
discernment cannot be an ingredient in it. If I can see my 
Friend's virtues more distinctly than another's, his faults too 
are made more conspicuous by contrast. We have not so 
good a right to hate any as our Friend. Faults are not the 
less faults because they are invariably balanced by corre- 
sponding virtue, and for a fault there is no excuse, though 
it rnay appear greater than it is in many ways. I have never 
known one who could bear criticism, who could not be 
flattered, who would not bribe his judge, or was content that 
the truth should be loved always better than himself. 

If two travelers would go their way harmoniously together, 
the one must take as true and just a view of things as the 
other, else their path will not be strewn with roses. Yet you 
can travel profitably and pleasantly even with a blind man, 
if he practices common courtesy, and when you converse 
about the scenery will remember that he is blind but that 
you can see ; and you will not forget that his sense of hear- 
ing is probably quickened by his want of sight. Otherwise 
jou will not long keep company. A blind man, and a man 



254 



A WEEK. 



in whose eyes there was no defect, were walking together, 
when they came to edge of a precipice, — " Take care ! my 
friend," said the latter, " here is a steep precipice ; go no 
further this way." " I know better," said the other, and 
stepped off. 

It is impossible to say all that we think, even to our truest 
Friend. We may bid him farewell forever sooner than 
complain, for our complaint is too well grounded to be 
uttered. There is not so good an understanding between 
any two, but the exposure by the one of a serious fault in the 
other will produce a misunderstanding in proportion to its 
heinousness. The constitutional differences which always 
exist, and are obstacles to a perfect Friendship, are forever 
a forbidden theme to the lips of Friends. They advise by 
their whole behavior. Nothing can reconcile them but love. 
They are fatally late when they undertake to explain and 
treat with one another like foes. Who will take an apology 
for a Friend ? They must apologize like dew and frost, 
which are off again with the sun, and which all men know in 
their hearts to be beneficent. The necessity itself for ex- 
planation, — what explanation will alone for that ? True love 
does not quarrel for slight reasons, such mistakes as mutual 
acquaintances can explain away, but alas, however slight the 
apparent cause, only for adequate and fatal and everlasting- 
reasons, which can never be set aside. Its quarrel, if there 
is any, is ever recurring, notwithstanding the beams of 
affection which invariably come to gild its tears ; as the 
rainbow, however beautiful and unerring a sign, does not 
promise fair weather forever, but only for a season. I have 
known two or three persons pretty well, and yet I have 
never known advice to be of use but in trivial and transient 
matters. One may know what another does not, but the 
utmost kindness cannot impart what is requisite to make 
the advice useful. We must accept or refuse one another as 
we are, I could tame a hyena more easily than my Friend, 



WEDNESDAY. 255 

He is a material which no tool of mine will work. A naked 
savage will fell an oak with a firebrand, and wear a hatchet 
out of the rock by friction, but I cannot hew the sinalltst 
chip out of the character of my Friend, either to beautify or 
deform it. 

The lover learns at last that there is no person quite 
transparent and trustworthy, but every one has a devil in 
him that is capable of any crime in the long run. Yet, as 
an Oriental philosopher has said, " Although Friendship 
between good men is interrupted, their principles remain 
unaltered. The stalk of the lotus may be broken, and the 
fibers remain connected." 

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom 
and skill without. There may be courtesy, there may be 
even temper, and wit, and talent, and sparkling conversation, 
there may be good-will even, — and yet the humanest and 
divinest faculties pine for exercise. Our life without love 
is like coke and ashes. Men may be pure as alabaster and 
Parian marble, elegant as a Tuscan villa, sublime as 
Niagara, and yet if there is no milk mingled with the wine 
at their entertainments, better is the hospitality of Goths 
and Vandals. My Friend is not of some other race or 
family of men, but flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. He 
is my real brother. I see his nature groping yonder so like 
mine. We do not live far apart. Have not the fates asso- 
ciated us in many ways ? Is it of no significance that we 
have so long partaken of the same loaf, drank at the same 
fountain, breathed the same air, summer and winter felt the 
same heat and cold ; that the same fruits have been pleased 
to refresh us both, and we have never had a thought of dif- 
ferent fiber the one from the other ! 



Nature doth have her dawn each day, 
But mine are far between ; 



256 A WEEK. 

Content, I cry, for sooth to say, 
Mine brightest are I ween. 

For when my sun doth deign to rise, 

Though it be her noontide, 
Her fairest field in shadow lies, 

Nor can my light abide. 

Sometimes I bask me in her day, 

Conversing with my mate, 
But if we interchange one ray, 

Forthwith her heats abate. 

Through his discourse I climb and see. 

As from some eastern hill, 
A brighter morrow rise to me 

Than lieth in her skill. 

As 'twere two summer days in one, 

Two Sundays come together. 
Our rays united make one sun. 

With fairest summer weather. 

As surely as the sunset in my latest November shall 
translate me to the ethereal world, and remind me of the 
ruddy morning of youth ; as surely as the last strain of 
music which falls on my decaying ear shall make age to be 
forgotten, or, in short, the manifold influences of nature 
survive during the term of our natural life, so surely my 
Friend shall forever be my Friend, and reflect a ray of God 
to me, and time shall foster and adorn and consecrate our 
Friendship, no less than the ruins of temples. As I love 
nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and 
flowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summer and 
winter, I love thee, my Friend. 

But all that can be said of Friendship, is like botany to 
flowers. How can the understanding take account of its 
friendliness ? 



WEDNESDAY. 257 

Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as their 
lives. They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the 
rich leave money to defray the expenses of their funerals, 
and their memories will be incrusted over with sublime and 
pleasing thoughts, as their monuments are overgrown with 
moss. 

This to our cis-Alpine and cis-Atlantic Friends. 

Also this other word of entreaty and advice to the large 
and respectable nation of Acquaintances, beyond the moun- 
tains ; — Greeting. 

My most serene and irresponsible neighbors, let us see 
tliat we have the whole advantage of each other ; we will be 
useful, at least, if not admirable, to one another. I know 
that the mountains which separate us are high, and covered 
with perpetual snow, but despair not. Improve the serene 
winter weather to scale them. If need be, soften the rocks 
with vinegar. For here lie the verdant plains of Italy ready 
to receive you. Nor shall I be slow on my side to penetrate 
to your Provence. Strike then boldly at head or heart or 
any vital part. Depend upon it the timber is well seasoned 
and tough, and will bear rough usage ; and if it should crack, 
there is plenty more where it came from. I am no piece of 
crockery that cannot be jostled against my neighbor without 
danger of being broken by the collision, and must needs 
ring false and jarringly to the end of my days, when once I 
am cracked ; but rather one of the ifld-fashioned wooden 
trenchers, which one while stands at the head of the table, 
and at another is a milking-stool, and at another a seat for 
children, and finally goes down to its grave not unadorned 
with honorable scars, and does not die till it is worn out. 
Nothing can shock a brave man but dullness. 'J'hink how 
many rebuffs every man has experienced in his day ; perhaps 
has fallen into a horse-ponJ, eaten fresh-water clams, or 
worn one shirt for a week without washing. Indeed, you 



258 A WEEK. 

cannot receive a shock unless you have an electric affinity 
for that which shocks you. Use me, then, for I am useful 
in my way, and stand as one of many petitioners, from toad- 
stool and henbane up to dahlia and violet, supplicating to 
be put to my use, if by any means ye may find me service- 
able ; whether for a medicated drink or bath, as balm and 
lavender; or for fragrance, as verbena and geranium; or 
for sight, as cactus ; or for thoughts, as pansy. These hum- 
bler, at least, if not those higher uses. 

Ah, my dear Strangers and Enemies, I would not forget 
you. I can well afford to welcome you. Let me subscribe 
myself Yours ever and truly — your much obliged servant. 
We have nothing to fear from our foes ; God keeps a stand- 
ing army for that service ; but we have no ally against our 
Friends, those ruthless Vandals. 

Once more to one and all, 

" Friends, Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers." 

Let such pure hate still underprop 
Our love, that we may be 
Each other's conscience, 
And have our sympathy 
Mamly from thence. 

We"ll one another treat like gods, 
And all the faith we have 
In virtue and in truth, bestow 
On either, and suspicion leave 
To gods below. 

Two solitary stars — 
Unmeasured systems far 
Between us roll. 

But by our conscious light we are 
Determined to one pole. 

What need confound the sphere — 
Love can afford to wait, 
For it no hour's too late 



WEDNESDAY. ^59 

That witnesseth one duty's end, 
Or to another doth beginning lend. 

It will subserve no use, 
More than the tints of flowers, 
Only the independent guest 
Frequents its bowers, 
Inherits its bequest. 

No speech though kind has it. 
But kinder silence doles 
Unto its mates. 
By night consoles, 
By day congratulates. 

What saith the tongue to tongue ? 
What heareth ear to ear ? 
By the decrees of fate 
From year to year. 
Does it communicate. 

Pathless the gulf of feeling yawns — 
No trivial bridge of words. 
Or arch of boldest span, 
Can leap the moat that girds 
The sincere man. 

No show of bolts and bars 
Can keep ihe foe man out, 
Or 'scape his secret mine 
Who entered with the doubt 
That drew the line. 

No warder at the gate 
Can let the friendly in. 
But, like the sun, o'er all 
He will the castle win. 
And shine along the wall. 

There's nothing in the world I know 
That can escape from love. 
For every depth it goes below. 
And every height above. 



26a A WEEK. 

It waits as waits the sky, 
Until the clouds go by, 
Yet shines serenely on 
With an eternal day. 
Alike when they are gone, 
And when they stay. 

Implacable is Love, — 
Foes may be bought or teazed 
From their hostile intent, 
But he goes unappeased 
Who is on kindness bent. 



Having rowed five or six miles above Amoskeag before 
sunset, and reached a pleasant part of the river, one of us 
landed to look for a farm-house, where we might replenish 
our stores, while the other remained cruising about the 
stream, and exploring the opposite shores to find a suitable 
harbor for the night. In the mean while the canal-boats 
began to come round a point in our rear, poling their way 
along close to the shore, the breeze having quite died 
away. This time there was no offer of assistance, but one 
of the boatmen only called out to say, as the truest revenge 
for having been the losers in the race, that he had seen a 
wood-duck, which we had scared up, sitting on a tall white- 
pine, half a mile down stream ; and he repeated the asser- 
tion several times, and seemed really chagrined at the 
apparent suspicion with which this information was re- 
ceived. But there sat the summer duck still undisturbed 
by us. 

By and by the other voyageur returned from his inland 
expedition, bringing one of the natives with him, a little 
flaxen-headed boy, with some tradition, or small edition, of 
Robinson Crusoe in his head, who had been charmed by 
the account of our adventures, and asked his father's leave 
to join us. He examined, at first from the top of the bank, 



WEDNESDAY. 201 

our boat and furniture, with sparkling eyes, and wished 
himself aheady his own man. He was a lively and in- 
teresting boy, and we should have been glad to ship him ; 
but Nathan was still his father's boy, and had not come to 
years of discretion. 

We had got a loaf of home-made bread, and musk and 
watermelons for dessert. For this farmer, a clever and 
well-disposed man, cultivated a large patch of melons for 
the Hooksett and Concord markets. He hospitably enter- 
tained us the next day, exhibiting his hop-fields and kiln 
and melon patch, warning us to step over the tight rope 
which surrounded the latter at a foot from the ground, 
while he pointed to a little bower at one corner, where it 
connected with the lock of a gun ranging with the line, 
and where, as he informed us, he sometimes sat in pleasant 
nights to defend his premises against thieves. We stepped 
high over the line, and sympathized with our host's on the 
whole quite human, if not humane, interest in the success 
of his experiment. That night especially thieves were to 
be expected, from rumors in the atmosphere, and the prim- 
ing was not wet. He was a Methodist man, who had his 
dwelling between the river and Uncannunuc Mountain ; 
who there belonged, and stayed at home there, and by the 
encouragement of distant political organizations, and by 
his own tenacity, held a property in his melons, and con- 
tinued to plant. We suggested melon seeds of new 
varieties and fruit of foreign flavor to be added to his 
stock. We had come away up here among the hills to 
learn the impartial and unbribable beneficence of Nature. 
StTawberries and melons grow as well in one man's garden 
as another's, and the sun lodges as kindly under his hill- 
side, — when we had imagined that she inclined rather to 
some few earnest and faithful souls whom we know. 

We found a convenient harbor for our boat on the oppo- 
site or east shore, still in Hooksett, at the mouth of a small 



262 A WEEK. 

brook which emptied into the Merrimac, where it would 
be out of the way of any passing boat in the night, — for 
they commonly hug the shore if bound up stream, either 
to avoid the current, or touch the bottom with their poles, — 
and where it would be accessible without stepping on the 
clayey shore. AVe set one of our largest melons to cool in 
the still water among the alders at the mouth of this creek, 
but when our tent was pitched and ready, and we went to 
get it, it had floated out into the stream and was nowhere 
to be seen. So taking the boat in the twilight, we went in 
pursuit of this property, and at length, after lojig straining 
of the eyes, its green disk was discovered far down the 
river, gently floating seaward with many twigs and leaves 
from the mountains that evening, and' so perfectly balanced 
that it had not keeled at all, and no water had run in at 
the tap which had been taken out to hasten its cooling. 

As we sat on the bank eating our supper, the clear light 
of the western sky fell on the eastern trees and was reflected 
in the water, and we enjoyed so serene an evening as left 
nothing to describe. For the most part we think that there 
are few degrees of sublimity, and that the highest is but 
little higher than that which we now behold ; but we are 
always deceived. Sublimer visions appear, and the former 
pale and fade away. We are grateful when we are reminded, 
by interior evidence, of the permanence of universal laws ; 
for our faith is but faintly remembered ; indeed, is not a 
remembered assurance, but a use and enjoyment of knowl- 
edge. It is when we do not have to believe, but come into 
actual contact with Truth, and are related to her in the 
most direct and intimate way. Waves of serener life pass 
over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the 
fields in cloudy weather. In some happier moment, when 
more sap flows in the withered stalk of our life, Syria and 
India stretch away from our present as they do in history. 
AW the events which make the annals of the nations are but 



WEDNF.su A V. 263 

the shadows of our private experiences. Suddenly and 
silently the eras which we call history awake and glimmer 
in us, and tliere is room for Alexander and Hannibal to 
march and conquer. In other words, the history which we 
read is only a fainter memory of events which have hap- 
pened in our own experience. Tradition is a more inter- 
rupted and feebler memory. 

This world is but canvas to our imaginations. I see men 
with infinite pains endeavoring to realize to their bodies, 
what I, with at least equal pains, would realize to my imagi- 
nation, — its capacities ; for certainly there is a life of the 
mind above the wants of the body and independent of it. 
Often the body is warmed, but the imagination is torpid ; 
the body is fat, but the imagination is lean and shrunk. 
But what avails all other wealth if this is wanting? " Im- 
agination is the air of mind," in which it lives and breathes. 
All things are as I am. Where is the House of Change ? 
'I'he past is only so heroic as we see it. It is the canvas on 
which our idea of heroism is painted, and so, in one sense, 
the dim prospectus of our future field. Our circumstances 
answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures. 
1 have noticed that if a man thinks that he needs a thousand 
dollars, and cannot be convinced that he does not, he will 
commonly be found to have them, if he lives and thinks 
a thousand dollars will be forthcoming, though it be to buy 
shoe strings with. A thousand mills will be just as slow to 
come to one who finds it equally hard to convince himself 
that he needs them. 

Men are by birth equal in this, that given 
Themselves and their condition, they are even. 

I am astonished at the singular pertinacity and endurance 
of our lives. The miracle is, that what is />, when it is so 
difificult, if not impossible, for anything else to be ; that we 
walk on in our particular paths so far, before we fall on 



264 A WEEK. 

death and fate, merely because we must walk in some path ; 
that every man can get a living, and so few can do any 
more. So much only can I accomplish ere health and 
strength are gone, and yet this suffices. The bird now sits 
just out of gunshot. I am never rich in money, and 1 am 
never meanly poor. If debts are incurred, why, debts are 
in the course of events canceled, as it were by the same law 
by which they were incurred. I heard that an engagement 
was entered into between a certain youth and a maiden, and 
then I heard that it was broken off, but I did not know the 
reason in either case. We are hedged about, we think, by 
accident and circumstance, now we creep as in a dream, and 
now again we run, as if there were a fate in it and all things 
thwarted or assisted. I cannot change my clothes but when 
I do, and yet I do change them, and soil the new ones. It 
is wonderful that this gets done, when some admirable deeds 
which I could mention do not get done. Our particular 
lives seem of such fortune and confident strength and 
durability as piers of solid rock thrown forward into the tide 
of circumstance. When every other path would fail, with 
singular and unerring confidence we advance on our par- 
ticular course. What risks we run ! famine and fire and 
pestilence, and the thousand forms of a cruel fate, — and yet 

every man lives till he dies. How did he manage that? 

Is there no immediate danger? We wonder superfluously 
when we hear of a somnambulist walking a plank securely, — 
we have walked a plank all our lives up to this particular 
string-piece where we are. My life will wait for nobody, 
but is being matured still without delay, while I go about the 
streets and chaffer with this man and that to secure a living. 
It is as indifferent and easy meanwhile as a poor man's dog, 
and making acquaintance with its kind. It will cut its own 
channel like a mountain stream, and by the longest ridge is 
not kept from the sea at last. I have found all things thus 
far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons, 



WEDNESDAY. 265 

Strangely adapted to my resources. No matter what im- 
prudent haste in my career ; I am permited to be rash. 
Gulfs are bridged in a twinkling, as if some unseen baggage 
train carried pontoons for my convenience, and while from 
the heights I scan the tempting but unexplored Pacific 
Ocean of Futurity, the ship is being carried over the moun- 
tains piece-meal on the backs of mules and llamas, whose 
keel shall plow its waves and bear me to the Indies. Day 
would not dawn if it were not for 

THE INWARD MORNING. 

Packed in my mind lie all the clothes 

Which outward nature wears, 
And in its fashion's hourly change 

It all things else repairs. 

In vain I look for change abroad, 

And can no difference find, 
Till some new ray of peace uncalled 

Illumes my inmost mind. 

What is it gilds the trees and clouds, 

And paints the heavens so gay, 
But yonder fast abiding light 

With its unchanging ray ? 

Lo, when the sun streams through the wood, 

Upon a winter's morn, 
Where'er his silent beams intrude 

The murky night is gone. 

How could the patient pine have known 

The morning breeze would come, 
Or humble flowers anticipate 

The insect's noonday hum, — 

Till the new light with morning cheer 

From far streamed through the aisles, 
And nimbly told the forest trees 

For many stretching miles ? 



266 A WEEK. 

I've heard within my inmost soul 

Such cheerful morning news, 
In the horizon of my mind 

Have seen such orient hues, 

As in the twilight of the dawn. 

When the first birds awake, 
Are heard within seme silent wood. 

Where they the small twigs break. 

Or in the eastern skies are seen, 

Before the sun appears. 
The hubingers of summer hea's 

Which from afar he bears. 

Whole weeks and months of my summer life slide away 
in thin volumes like mist and smoke, till at length, some 
warm morning, perchance, I see a sheet of mist blown down 
the brook to the swamp, and I float as high above the fields 
with it. [ can recall to mind the stillest summer hours, in 
which the grasshopper sings over the mulleins, and there is 
a valor in that time the bare memory of which is armor 
that can laugh at any blow of fortune. For our lifetime the 
strains of a harp are heard to swell and die alternately, and 
death is but " the pause when the blast is recollecting it- 
self." 

We lay awake a long while, listening to the murmurs of 
the brook, in the angle formed by whose bank with the 
river our tent was pitched, and there was a sort of human 
interest in its story, which ceases not in freshet or in drought 
the livelong summer, and the profounder lapse of the river 
was quite drowned by its din. But the rill, whose 

.Silver sands and pebbles sing 
Eternal ditties with the spring, 

is silenced by the first frosts of winter, while mightier 
streams, on whose bottom the sun never shines, clogged 



WEDNESDAY. 267 

with sunken rocks and the ruins of forests, from whose sur- 
face comes up no murmur, are strangers to the icy fetters 
which bind fast a thousand contributary rills. 

I dreamed this night of an event which had occurred long 
before. It was a difference with a Friend, which had not 
ceased to give me pain, though I had no cause to blame 
myself. But in my dream ideal justice was at length done 
me for his suspicions, and I received that compensation 
which I had never obtained in my waking hours. I was un- 
speakably soothed and rejoiced, even after I awoke, because 
in dreams we never deceive ourselves, nor are deceived, and 
this seemed to have the authority of a final judgment. 

We bless and curse ourselves. Some dreams are divine, 
as well as some waking thoughts. Donne sings of one 

Who dreamt devoutlier than most use to pray. 

Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. We are 
scarcely less afflicted when we remember some unworthi- 
ness in our conduct in a dream, than if it had been actual, 
and the intensity of our grief, which is our atonement, meas- 
ures inversely the degree by which this is separated from 
an actual unworthiness. For in dreams we but act a part 
which must have been learned and rehearsed in our waking 
hours, and no doubt could discover some waking consent 
thereto. If this meanness has not its foundation in us, why 
are we grieved at it ? In dreams we see ourselves naked 
and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than 
we see others awake. But an unwavering and commanding 
virtue would compel even its most fantastic and faintest 
dreams to respect its ever wakeful authority ; as we are 
accustomed to say carelessly, we should never have dreamed 
of such a thing. Our truest life is when we are in dreams 
awake. 

And, more to lulle him in his slumber soft, 

A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe, 



268 A WEEK. 

And ever-drizzling raine upon the loft, 

Mixt with a murmuring vvinde, much like the sowne 

Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne. 

No other noyse, nor people's troublous cryes, 

As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne. 

Might there be heard ; but careless Quiet lyes, 

Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enemyes. 



THURSDAY. 



He trode the unplanted forest floor, whereon 
The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone. 
Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear, 
And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker. 
***** 

Where darkness found him he lay glad at night ; 
There the red morning touched him with its light. 
***** 

Go where he will, the wise man is at home, 
His hearth the earth, — his hall the azure dome ; 
Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road, 
By God's own light illumined and foreshowed. 

Emerson, 



When we awoke this morning, we heard the faint deliber- 
ate and ominous sound of rain drops on our cotton roof. 
The rain had pattered all night, and now the whole country 
wept, the drops falling in the river, and on the alders, and 
in the pastures, and instead of any bow in the heavens, there 
was the trill of the tree-sparrow all the morning. The 
cheery faith of this little bird atoned for the silence of 
the whole -woodland choir beside. When we first stepped 
abroad, a flock of sheep, led by their rams, came rushing 
down a ravine in our rear, with heedless haste and unre- 
served frisking, as if unobserved by man, from some higher 
pasture where they had spent the night, to taste the herbage 
by the river-side ; but when their leaders caught sight of our 
white tent through the mist, struck with sudden astonish- 
ment, with their fore feet braced, they sustained the rush- 

269 



270 A WEEK. 

ing torrent in their rear, and the wliole flock stood slock- 
still, endeavoring to solve the mystery in their sheepish 
brains. At length, concluding that it boded no mischief 
to them, they spread themselves out quietly over the field. 

We learned afterward that we had pitched our tent on tlie 
very spot which a few summers before had been occupied 
by a party of Penobscots. We could see rising before us 
through the mist a dark conical eminence called Hookselt 
Pinnacle, a landmark to boatmen, and also Uncannunuc 
Mountain, broad off on the west side of the river. 

This was the limit of our voyage, for a few hours more in 
the rain would have taken us to the last of the locks, and our 
boat was too heavy to be dragged around the long and nu- 
merous rapids which would occur. On foot, however, we 
continued up along the bank, feeling our way with a stick 
through the showery and foggy day, and climbing over the 
slippery logs in our path with as much pleasure and bouy- 
ancy as in the brightest sunshine ; scenting the fragrance 
of the pines and the wet clay under our feet, and cheered 
by the tones of invisible waterfalls ; with visions of toad- 
stools and wandering frogs, and festoons of moss hanging 
from the spruce trees, and thrushes flitting silent under the 
leaves; our road still holding together through the wet- 
test of weather, like faith, while we confidently followed its 
lead. We managed to keep our thoughts dry, however, and 
only our clothes were wet. It was altogether a cloudy and 
drizzling day, with occasional brightenings in the mist, 
when the trill of the tree-sparrow seemed to be ushering in 
sunny hours. 

"Nothing that naturally happens to man, can Jiiirt him, 
earthquakes and thunderstorms not excepted," said a man of 
genius, who at this time lived a few miles farther on our 
fOad. When compelled by a shower to take shelter under 
a tree, we may improve that opportunity for a more minute 
inspection of some of Nature's works. I have stood under 



THURSDAY. 271 

a tree in the woods half a day at a time, during a lieavy 
rain in the summer, and yet employed myself happily and 
profitably there, prying with miscroscropic eye into the 
crevices of the bark or the leaves or the fungi at my feet. 
" Riches are the attendants of the miser ; and the heavens 
rain plenteously upon the mountains." I can fancy that 
it would be a luxury to stand up to one's chin in some re- 
tired swamp a whole summer da}^ scenting the wild honey- 
suckle and bilberry blows, and lulled by the minstrelsy of 
gnats and mosquitoes ! A day passed in the society of those 
Greek sages, such as described in the Banquet of Xene- 
phon, would not be comparable with the dry wit of decayed 
cranberry vines, and the fresh Attic salt of the moss-beds. 
Say twelve hours of genial and familiar converse with the 
leopard frog; the sun to rise behind alder and dog- 
wood, and climb bouyantly to his meridian of two hands' 
breadth, and finally sink to rest behind some bold western 
hummock. To hear the evening chant of the mosquito 
from a thousand green chapels, and the bittern begin to 
boom from some concealed fort like a sunset gun ! — 
Surely one may as pi*ofitably be soaked in the juices of 
a swamp for one day as pick his way dry-shod over sand. 
Cold and damp, — are they not as rich experience as warmth 
and dryness ? 

At present, the drops come trickling down the stubble 
while we lie drenched on a bed of withered wild oats, by 
the side of a bushy hill, and the gathering in of the clouds, 
with the last rush and dying breath of the wind, and then 
the regular dripping of twigs and leaves the country over, 
enhance the sense of inward comfort and sociableness. 
The birds draw closer and are more familiar under the 
thick foliage, seemingly composing new strains upon their 
roosts against the sunshine. What were the amusements 
of the drawing-room and the library in comparison, if we 
had them here ? We should still sing as of old, 



272 A WEEK, 

My books I'd fain cast oflf, I cannot read, 
'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large 
Down in the meadow, where is richer feed, 
And will not mind to hit their proper targe. 

Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too, 
Our Shakespeare's life was rich to live again, 
What Plutarch r> ad, that was not good nor true, 
Nor Shakespeare's books, unless his books were men. 

Here while I lie beneatli this walnut bough, 
What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town. 
If juster battles aie enacted now 
Between the ants upon this hummock's crown ? 

Bid Homer wait till I the issue learn. 
If red or black the gods will favor most. 
Or yonder Ajax will the phalanx turn, 
Struggling to heave some rock against the host. 

Tell Shakespeare to attend some leisure hour, 
For now I've business with this drop of dew, 
And see you not, the clouds prepare a shower, — 
I'll meet him shortly when the sky is blue. 

This bed of herd's-grass and wild oats was spread 
Last year with nicer skill than monarchs use, 
A clover tuft is pillow for my head. 
And violets quite overtop my shoes. 

And now the cordial clor.ds have shut all in. 
And gently swells the wind to say all's well. 
The scattered drops are falling fast and thin, 
.Some in the pool, some in the flower-bell. 

I am well drenched upon my bed of oats ; 
But see that globe come rolling down its stem, 
Now like a lonely planet lliere it floats. 
And now it sinks in'o my garment's hem. 

Drip, drip, the trees for all the country round, 
And richness rare distills from every bough. 
The wind alone it is makes every sound. 
Shaking down crystals on the leaves below. 



THURSDAY. 273 

For shame the sun will never show himself, 
Who could not with his beams e'er melt me so, 
My dripping locks — they would become an elf, 
Who in a beaded coat does gayly go. 

The Pinnacle is a small wooded hill which rises very ab- 
ruptly to the height of about two hundred feet, near the 
shore at Hooksett Falls. As Uncannunuc Mountain is 
perhaps the best point from which to view the valley of the 
Merrimac, so this hill affords the best view of the river itself. 
I have sat upon its summit, a precipitous rock only a few 
rods long, in fairer weather, when the sun was setting and 
filling the river valley with a flood of light. You can see up 
and down the Merrimac several miles each way. The broad 
and straight river, full of light and life, with its sparkling 
and foaming falls, the islet which divides the stream, the 
village of Hooksett on the shore almost directly under your 
feet, so near that you can converse with its inhabitants or 
throw a stone into its yards, the woodland lake at its west- 
ern base, and the mountains in the north and northeast, 
make a scene of rare beauty and completeness, which the 
traveler should take pains to behold. 

We were hospitably entertained in Concord in New Hatnp- 
shire, which we persisted in calling New Concord, as we 
had been wont, to distinguish it from our native town, from 
which we had been told that it was named and in part origi- 
nally settled. This would have been the proper place to 
conclude our voyage, uniting Concord with Concord by these 
meandering rivers, but our boat was moored some miles be- 
low its port. 

The richness of the intervals at Penacook, now Concord in 
New Hampshire, had been observed by explorers, and ac- 
cording to the historian of Haverhill, 

In the year 1726, consideraMe progress was made in the settlement, and 
a road was cut through the wilderness from Haverhill to Penacook. In 
the fall of 1727, the first family, that of Capt. Ebenezer Eastman, moved 
into the place. His team was driven by Jacob Shute, who was by birth a 



274 A WEEK. 

Frenchman, and he is said to have been the first person who drove a team 
through the wilderness. Soon after, says tradition, one Ayer, a lad of 
eighteen, drove a team consisting of ten yoke of oxen to Penacook, swam 
the river, and plowed a portion of the interval. He is supposed to have 
been the first person who plowed land in that place. After he had com- 
pleted his work, he started on his return at sunrise, drowned a yoke of 
o.\en while recrossing the river, and ai rived at Haverhill about midnight. 
The crank of the first saw-mill was manufactured in Haverhill, and car- 
ried to Penacook on a horse. 

But we found that the frontiers were not this way any 
longer. Tliis generation has come into the world fatally 
late for some enterprises. Go where w^e will on the surface 
of things, men have been there before us. We cannot now 
have the pleasure of erecting the last house ; that was long 
ago set up in the suburbs of Astoria city, and our boundaries 
have literally been run to the South Sea, according to the old 
patents. But the lives of men, though more extended later- 
ally in their range, are still as shallow as ever. Undoubtedly, 
as a Western orator said, " men generally live over about 
the same surface ; some live long and narrow, and others 
live broad and short ;" but it is all superficial living. A 
worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, 
and a much wiser settler. With all their activity these do 
not hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We 
do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising above or 
diving below its plane ; as the worm escapes drought and 
frost by boring a few inches deeper. The frontiers are not 
east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a 
fact, though that fact be his neighbor, there is an unsettled 
wilderness between him and Canada, between him and the 
setting sun, or, further still, between him and it. Let him 
build himself a log-house with the bark on where he \?>, front- 
ing IT, and wage there on Old French war for seven or 
seventy years, with Indians and Rangers, or whatever else 
may come between him and the reality, and save his scalp if 
he can. 



THURSDAY. 275 

We now no longer sailed or floated on the river, but trod 
the unyielding- land like pilgrims. Sadi tells who may 
travel ; among others, — " A common mechanic, who can 
earn a subsiotence by the industry of his hand, and shall 
not have to stake his reputation for every morsel of bread, 
as philosophers have said." He may travel who can subsist 
on the wild fruits and game of the most cultivated country. 
A man may travel fast enough and earn his living on the 
road. I have frequently been applied to, to do work when 
on a journey ; to do tinkering and repair clocks, when I 
had a knapsack on my back. A man once applied to me to 
go into a factory, stating conditions and wages, observing 
that I succeeded in shutting the window of a railroad car 
in which we were traveling, when the other passengers had 
failed. " Hast thou not heard of a Sufi, who was hammer- 
ing some nails into the sole of his sandal ; an officer of 
cavalry took him by the sleeve, saying, come along and shoe 
my horse." Farmers have asked me to assist them in hay- 
ing, when I was passing their fields. A man once applied 
to me to me'nd his umbrella, taking me for an uml^rella 
mender, because, being on a journey, I carried an umbrella 
in my hand while the sun shone. Another wished to buy a 
tin cup of me, observing that I had one strapped to my belt, 
and a sauce-pan on my back. The cheapest way to travel, 
and the way to travel the farthest in the shortest distance, 
is to go afoot, carrying a dipper, a spoon, and a fish-line, 
some Indian meal, some salt, and some sugar. When you 
come to a brook or pond, you can catch fish and cook 
them ; or you can boil a hasty-pudding ; or you can buy a 
loaf of bread at a farmer's house for fourpence, moisten it 
in the next brook that crosses the road, and dip into it your 
sugar, — this alone will last you a whole day ; — or, if you 
are accustomed to heartier living, you can buy a quart of 
milk for two cents, crumb your bread or cold pudding into 
it, and e-at it with your own spoon out of your own dish. 



276 A WEEK. 

Any one of these things, I mean, not all together. I have 
traveled thus some hundreds of miles without taking any 
meal in a house, sleeping on the ground when convenient, 
and found it cheaper, and in many respects more profitable, 
than staying at home. So that some have inquired why it 
would not be best to travel always. But I never thought 
of traveling simply as a means of getting a livelihood. A 
simple woman down in Tyngsboro', at whose house I once 
stopped to get a draught of water, when I said, recognizing 
the bucket, that I had stopped there nine years before for 
the same purpose, asked if I was not a traveler, supposing 
that I had been traveling ever since, and had now come 
round again, that traveling was one of the professions, 
more or less productive, which her husband did not follow. 
But continued traveling is far from productive. It begins 
with wearing away the soles of the shoes, and making the 
feet sore, and ere long it will wear a man clean up, after 
making his heart sore into the bargain. I have observed 
that the after-life of those who have traveled much is very 
pathetic. True and sincere traveling is no pastime, but it 
is as serious as the grave, or any other part of the human 
journey, and it requires a long probation to be broken into 
it. I do not speak of those that travel sitting, the seden- 
tary travelers whose legs hang dangling the while, mere 
idle symbols of the fact, any more than when we speak of 
sitting hens we mean those that sit standing, but I mean 
those to whom traveling is life for the legs. The traveler 
must be born again on the road, and earn a passport from 
the elements, the principal powers that be for him. He 
shall experience at last that old threat of his mother ful- 
filled, that he shall be skinned alive. His sores shall grad- 
ually deepen themselves that they may heal inwardly, 
while he gives no rest to the sole of his foot, and at night 
weariness must be his pillow, that so he may acquire expe- 
rience against his rainy days. So was it with us. 



THURSDAY. 277 

Sometimes we lodged at an inn in the woods, where trout- 
fishers from distant cities had arrived before us, and where, 
to our astonishment, the settlers dropped in at nightfall to 
have a chat and hear the news, though there was but one 
road, and no other house was visible, — as if they had come 
out of the earth. There we sometimes read old newspapers, 
who never before read new ones, and in the rustle of their 
leaves heard the dashing of the surf along the Atlantic 
shore, instead of the sough of the wind among the pines. 
But then walking had given us an appetite even for the 
least palatable and nutritious food. 

Some hard and dry book in a dead language, which you 
have found it impossible to read at home, but for which you 
have still a lingering regard, is the best to carry with you 
on a journey. At a country inn, in the barren society of 
hostlers and travelers, I could undertake the writers of the 
silver or the brazen age with confidence. Almost the last 
regular service which I performed in the cause of literature 
was to read the works of 

AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS. 

If you have imagined what a divine work is spread out 
for the poet, and approach this author, too, in the hope of 
finding the field at length fairly entered on, you will hardly 
dissent from the words of the prologue. 

Ipse semipaganiis 
Ad sacra Vatum carmen affero nostrum. 

I, half pagan, 
Bring my verses to tlie shrine of the poets. 

Here is none of the interior dignity of Virgil, nor the 
elegance and vivacity of Horace, nor will any sybil be 
needed to remind you, that from those older Greek poets 
there is a sad descent to Persius. You can scarcely dis- 
tinguish one harmonious sound amid this unmusical bicker- 
inof with the follies of men. 



27S A WEEK. 

One sees that music has its place in thought, but hardly 
as yet in language. When the Muse arrives, we wait for 
her to remold language, and impart to it her own rhythm. 
Hitherto the verse groans and labors with its load, and goes 
not forward blithely, singing by the way. The best ode 
may be parodied, indeed is itself a parody, and has a poor 
and trivial sound, like a man stepping on the rounds of a 
ladder. Homer, and Shakespeare, and Milton, and Marvel, 
and Wordsworth, are but the rustling of leaves and crackling 
of twigs in the forest, and there is not yet the sound of any 
bird. The Muse has never lifted up her voice to sing. 
Most of all, satire will not be sung. A Juvenal or Persius 
do not marry music to their verse, but are measured fault- 
finders at best ; stand but just outside the faults they con- 
demn, and so are concerned rather about the monster which 
they have escaped, than the fair prospect before them. Let 
them live on an age, and they will have traveled out of his 
shadow and reach, and found other objects to ponder. 

As lono- as there is satire, the poet is, as it were, />a/ //- 
ceps criniiiiis. One sees not but he had best let bad take 
care of itself, and have to do only with what is beyond 
suspicion. If you light on the least vestige of truth, and 
it is the weight of the whole body still which stamps the 
faintest trace, an eternity will not suffice to extol it, while 
no evil is so huge, but you grudge to bestow on it a moment 
of hate. Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood ; her own 
straightforwardness is the severest correction. Horace 
would not have written satire so well if he had not been 
inspired by it, as by a passion, and fondly cherished his 
vein. In his odes, the love always exceeds the hate, so that 
the severest satire still sings itself, and the poet is satisfied, 
though the folly be not corrected. 

A sort of necessary order in the development of Genius 
is, first, Complaint ; second. Plaint ; third, Love. Com- 
iplaint, which is the condition of Persius, lies not in the 



THURSDAY. 279 

province of poetrj'. Ere long the enjoyment of a superior 
good would have changed his disgust into regret. We can 
never have much sympathy with the coniplainer ; for after 
searching nature through, we conclude that he must be both 
plaintiff and defendant too, and so had best come to a 
settlement without a hearing. He who receives an injury 
is to some extent an accomplice of the wrong doer. 

Perhaps it would be truer to say, that the highest strain 
of the muse is essentially plaintive. The saint's are still 
tears of joy. Who has ever heard the Innocent sing ! 

But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the 
severest satire ; as impersonal as Nature herself, and like the 
sighs of her winds in the woods, which convey ever a slight 
reproof to the hearer. The greater the genius, the keener 
the edge of the satire. 

Hence we have to do only with the rare and fragmentary 
traits, which least belong to Persius, or shall we say, are the 
properest utterances of his muse ; since that which he says 
best at any time is what he can best say at all times. The 
Spectators and Ramblers have not failed to cull some 
quotable sentences from this garden too, so pleasant is it to 
meet even the most familiar truth in a new dress, when, if 
our neighbor had said it, we should have passed it by as 
hackneyed. Out of these six satires, you may perhaps 
select some twenty lines, which fit so well as many 
thoughts, that they will recur to the scholar almost as 
readily as a natural image ; though when translated into 
famiUar language, they lose their insular emphasis which 
fitted them for quotation. Such lines as the following, 
translation cannot render commonplace. Contrasting the 
man of true religion with those who, with jealous privacy, 
would fain carry on a secret commerce with the gods, he 
says : 

Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque humilesque susurros, 
Tollere de templis ; et aperto vivere voto. 



28o A WEEK. 

It is not easy for every one to take murmurs and low 
' Whispers out of the temples, and live with open vow. 

To the virtuous man, the universe is the only sanctum 
sanctorum^ and the penetralia of the temple are the broad 
noon of his existence. Why should he betake himself to a 
subterranean crypt, as if it were the only holy ground in all 
the world which he had left unprofaned ? 'I'he obedient 
soul would only the more discover and familiarize things, 
and escape more and more into light and air, as having 
henceforth done with secrecy, so that the universe shall 
not seem open enough for it. At length, it is neglectful 
even of that silence which is consistent with true modesty, 
but by its independence of all confidence in its disclosures, 
makes that which it imparts so private to the hearer, that 
it becomes the care of the whole world that modesty be not 
infringed. 

To the man who cherishes a secret in his breast, there 
is a still greater secret unexplored. Our most indifferent 
acts may be matter for secrecy, but whatever we do with 
the utmost truthfulness and integrity, by virtue of its pure- 
ness, must be transparent as light. 

In the third satire, he asks. 

Est aliquid quo tendis, et in quod dirigis arcum ? 
An passim sequeris corvos, testave, lutove, 
Securus quo pes ferat, atque ex tempore vivis ? 

Is there anything to which thou tendest, and against which thou direct- 

est thy bow ? 
Or dost thou pursue crows, at random, with pottery or clay, 
Careless whither thy feet bear thee, and Hve ex tempore ? 

The bad sense is always a secondary one. Language 
does not appear to have justice done it, but is obviously 
cramped and narrowed in its significance when an}' mean- 
ness is described. The truest construction is not put upon 
it. What may readily be fashioned into a rule of wisdom, 



THURSDAY. 281 

is here thrown in the teeth of the skiggard, and constitutes 
the front of his offense. Universally, the innocent man will 
come forth from the sharpest inquisition and lecturing, the 
combined din of reproof and commendation, with a faint 
sound of eulogy in his ears. Our vices always lie in the 
direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but 
plausible imitations of the latter. Falsehood never attains 
to the dignity of entire falseness, but is only an inferior sort 
of truth ; if it were more thoroughly false, it would incur 
danger of becoming true. 

Securus quo pes ferat, atque ex tempore vivit, 

is then the motto of a wise man. For first, as the subtile 
discernment of the language would have taught us, with 
all his negligence he is still secure ; but the sluggard, not- 
withstanding his heedlessness, is insecure. 

The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for 
he lives out of an eternity which includes all time. The 
cunning mind travels farther back than Zoroaster each in- 
stant, and comes quite down to the present with its revela- 
tion. The utmost thrift and industry of thinking give no 
man any stock in life; his credit with the inner world is no 
better, his capital no larger. He must try his fortune again 
to-day as yesterday. All questions rely on the present for 
their solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The 
word that is written may be postponed, but not that on the 
lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the occasion say 
it. All the world is forward to prompt him who gets up to 
live without his creed in his pocket. 

In the fifth satire, which is the best, I find, — 

Stat contra ratio, et secretam garrit in aurem, 
Ne liceat facere id, quod quis vitiabit agendo. 

Reason opposes and whispers in the secret ear, 

That it is not lawful to do that which one will spoil by doing. 



202 A WEEK. 

Only they wlio 60 not see how anything might be better 
done, are forward to try their hand on it. Even the master 
workman must be encouraged by the reflection that his 
awkwardness will be incompetent to do that thing harm, to 
which his skill may fail to do justice. Here is no apology 
for neglecting to do many things from a sense of our inca- 
pacity, — for what 6eti(\ does not fall maimed and imperfect 
from our hands ? — but only a warning to bungle less. 

The satires of Persius are the farthest possible from in- 
spired ; evidently a chosen, not imposed subject. Perhaps 
I have given him credit for more earnestness than is ap- 
parent ; but it is certain that that which alone we can call 
Persius, which is forever independent and consistent, 7('as 
in earnest, and so sanctions the sober consideration of all. 
The artist and his work are not to be separated. I'he most 
willfully foolish man cannot stand aloof from his folly, but 
the deed and the doer together make ever one sober fact. 
There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor. The 
buffoon cannot bribe you to laugh always at his grimaces ; 
they shall sculpture themselves in Egyptian granite, to stand 
heavy as the pyramids on the ground of his character. 



Suns rose and set and fouiul us still on the dank forest 
path which meanders up the Pemigewasset, now more like 
an otter's or a martin's trail, or where a beaver had dragged 
his trap, than where the wheels of travel raise a dust ; where 
towns begin to serve as gores, only to hold the earth to- 
gether. The wild pigeon sat secure above our heads, high 
on the dead limbs of naval pines, reduced to a robin's size. 
The very yards of our hostelries inclined upon the skirts of 
mountains, and, as we passed, we looked up at a steep 
angle at the stems of maples waving in the clouds. 

Far tip in the country,— for we would he faithful to our ex- 
perience, — in Thornton, perhaps, we met a soldier lad in 



THURSDAY. 283 

the woods, going to muster in full regimentals, and holding 
the middle of the road ; deep in the forest with shouldered 
musket and military step, and thoughts of war and glory 
all to himself. It was a sore trial to the youth, tougher 
than many a battle, to get by us creditably and with soldier- 
like bearing. Poor man ! He actually shivered like a reed 
in his thin military trousers, and by the time we had got up 
with him, all the sternness that becomes the soldier had for- 
saken his face, and he skulked past as if he were driving 
his father's sheep under a sword-proof helmet. It was too 
much for him to carry any extra armor then, who could not 
easily dispose of his natural arms. And for his legs, they 
were like heavy artillery in boggy places ; better to cut the 
traces and forsake them. His greaves chafed and wrestled 
one with another for want of other foes. But he did get by 
and get off with all his munitions, and lived to fight another 
day, and I do not record this as casting any suspicion on his 
honor and real bravery in the field. 

Wandering on througli notches which the streams had 
made, by the side and over the brows of hoar hills and 
n\ountains, across the stumpy, rocky, forested and bepas- 
tured country, we at length crossed on prostrate trees over 
the Amonoosuck, and breathed the free air of Unappropri- 
ated Land. Thus, in fair days as well as foul, we had 
traced up the river to which our native stream is a tributary, 
until from Merrimac it became the Pemigewasset that 
leaped by our side, and when we had passed its fountain- 
head, the Wild Amonoosuck, whose puny channel was crossed 
at a stride, guiding us toward its distant source among the 
mountains, and at length, without its guidance, we were en- 
abled to reach the summit of Agiocochook. 



Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 
The bridal of the earth and sky, 



284 A WEEK. 

Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night, 
For thou must die. 

Herbert. 

When we returned to Hooksett, a week afterward, the 
melon man, in whose corn-barn we had hung our tent and 
buffaloes and other things to dry, was already picking his 
hops, with many women and children to help him. We 
bought one watermelon, the largest in his patch, to carry 
with us for ballast. It was Nathan's, which he might sell 
if he pleased, having been conveyed to him in the green 
state, and owned daily by his eyes. After due consultation 
with " Father," the bargain was concluded, — we to buy it 
at a venture on the vine, green or ripe our risk, and pay 
" what the gentlemen pleased." It proved to be ripe ; for 
we had had honest experience in selecting this fruit. 

Finding our boat safe in its harbor, under Uncannunuc 
Mountain, with a fair wind and the current in our favor, we 
commenced our return voyage at noon, sitting at our ease 
and conversing, or in silence watching for the last trace of 
each reach in the river as a bend concealed it from our 
view. As the season was further advanced, the wind now 
blew steadily from the north, and with our sail set we could 
occasionally lie on our oars without loss of time. The 
lumbermen throwing down wood from the top of the high 
bank, thirty or forty feet above the water, that it might be 
sent down stream, paused in their work to watch our retreat- 
ing sail. By this time, indeed, we were well known to the 
boatmen, and were hailed as the Revenue Cutter of the 
stream. As we sailed rapidly down the river, shut in be- 
tween two mounds of earth, the sound of this timber rolled 
down the bank enhanced the silence and vastness of the 
noon, and we fancied that only the primeval echoes were 
awakened. The vision of a distant scow, just heaving in 
sight round a headland, also increased by contrast the soli- 
tude. 



THURSDAY. 285 

Through the dhi and desnltoriness of noon, even in the 
most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage 
nature, in which Scythians, and Ethiopians, and Indians 
dwell. What is echo, what are light and shade, day and 
night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there ? The 
works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immen- 
sity of Nature. The .^^gean Sea is but Lake Huron still to 
the Indian. Also there is all the refinement of civilized life 
in the woods under a sylvan garb. The wildest scenes 
have and air of domesticity and homeliness even to the citi- 
zen, and when the flicker's cackle is heard in the clearing, he 
is reminded that civilization has wrought but little change 
there. Science is welcome to the deepest recesses of the 
forest, for there too nature obeys the same old civil laws. The 
little red bug on the stump of a pine, for it the wind shifts and 
the sun breaks through the clouds. In the wildest nature, 
there is not only the material of the most cultivated life, and 
a sort of anticipation of the last result, but a greater refine- 
ment already than is ever attained by man. There is papy- 
rus by the river-side, and rushes for light, and the goose only 
flies overhead, ages before the studious are born or letters 
invented, and that literature which the former suggests, and 
even from the first have rudely served, it may be man does 
not yet use them to express. Nature is prepared to wel- 
come into her scenery the finest work of human art, for she 
is herself an art so cunning that the artist never appears in 
his work. 

Art is not tame, and Nature is not wild, in the ordinary 
sense. A perfect work of man's art would also be wild or 
natural iu a good sense. Man tames Nature only that he 
may at last make her more free even than he found her, 
though he may never yet have succeeded. 

With this propitious breeze, and the help of our oars, we 
soon reached the Falls of Amoskeag, and the mouth of the 



286 A WEEK. 

Piscataquoag, and recognized, as we swept rapidly by, many 
a fair bank and islet on which our eyes had rested in the 
upward passage. Our boat was like that whicii Chaucer 
describes in his Dream, in which the knight took his depar- 
ture from the island, 

To journey for his marriage. 

And return with such an host, 

That wedded might be least and most. . . . 

Which barge was as a man's thought, 

After his pleasure to him brought, 

The queene herself accustomed aye 

In the same barge to play, 

It needed neither mast ne rother, 

I have not heard of such another, 

No master for the governance. 

Hie sayled by thought and pleasaunce, 

Without labor east and west. 

All was one, calme or tempest. 

So we sailed this afternoon, thinking of the saying of 
Pythagoras, though we had no peculiar right to remember 
it, — " It is beautiful when prosperity is present with in- 
tellect, and when, sailing as it were with a prosperous wind, 
actions are performed looking to virtue ; just as a pilot 
looks to the motions of the stars." All the world reposes 
in beauty to him who preserves equipoise in his life, and 
moves serenely on his path without secret violence ; as he 
who sails down a stream, he has only to steer, keeping his 
bark in the middle, and carry it round the falls. The rip- 
ples curled away in our wake, like ringlets from the head 
of a child, while we steadily held on our course, and under 
the bows we watched 

The swaying soft, 

Made by the delicate wave parted in front, 
As through the gentle element we move 
Like shadows gliding through untroubled dreams. 



THURSDAY. 287 

The forms of beauty fall naturally around tiie path oi him 
wiio is in the performance of his proper work ; as the 
curled shavings drop from the plane, and borings cluster 
round the auger. Undulation is the gentlest and most 
ideal of motions, produced by one fluid failing on another. 
Rippling is a more graceful flight. From a hilltop you may 
detect in it the wings of birds endlessly repeated. 'I'he 
two tearing lines which represent the flight of birds appear 
to have been copied from the rippie% 

'I'he trees made an admirable fence to the landscape, 
skirting the horizon on every side. The single trees and 
the groves left standing on the interval, appeared naturally 
disposed, though the farmer had consulted only his conven- 
ience, for he too falls into the scheme of Nature. Art 
can never match the luxury and superfluity of Nature. 
In the former all is seen ; it cannot aftord concealed 
wealth, and is niggardly in comparison ; but Nature, even 
when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by 
the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots. In 
swamps, where there is only here and there an evergreen 
tree amid the quaking moss and cranberry beds, the bare- 
ness does not suggest poverty. The double-spruce, which 
I had hardly noticed in gardens, attracts me in such places, 
and now first I understand why men try to make them 
grow about their houses. But though there may be very 
perfect specimens in front-yard plots, their beauty is for the 
m )st part ineffectual there, for there is no such assurance 
of kindred wealth beneath and around them to make them 
show to advantage. As we have said. Nature is a greater 
and more perfect art, the art of God ; though, referred to 
herself, she is genius, and there is a similarity between her 
operations and man's art even in the details and trifles. 
When the overhanging pine drojjs into the water, by the 
sun and water, and the wind rubbing it against the shore, 
its boughs are worn into fantastic shapes, and white and 



288 A WEEK. 

smooth, as if turned in a lathe. Man's art has wisely imi- 
tated those forms into which all matter is most inclined to 
run, as foliage and fruit. A hammock swung in a grove 
assumes the exact form of a canoe, broader or narrower, 
and higher or lower at the ends, as more or fewer persons 
are in it, and it rolls in the air with the motion of the body, 
like a canoe in the water. Our art leaves its shavings and 
its dust about; her art exhibits itself even in the shavings 
and the dust which we make. She has perfected herself 
by an eternity of practice. The world is well kept ; no 
rubbish accumulates; the morning air is clear even at this 
day, and no dust has settled on the grass. Behold how the 
evening now steals over the fields, the shadows of the trees 
creeping further and further into the meadow, and ere long 
the stars will come to bathe in these retired waters. Her 
undertakings are secure and never fail. If I were awakened 
from a deep sleep, I should know which side of the meridian 
the sun might be by the aspect of nature, and by the chirp 
of the crickets, and yet no painter can paint this difference. 
The landscape contains a thousand dials which indicate the 
natural divisions of time, the shadows of a thousand styles 
point to the hour. 

Not only o'er ihe dial's face, 

This silent phantom day by day, 
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace 

Steals moments, months, and years away ; 
From hoary rock and aged tree, 

From proud Palmyras moldering walls 
From Teneriffe, towering o'er the sea, 

From every blade of grass it falls. 

It is almost the only game which the trees play at, thistit-for- 
tat, now this side in the sun, now that, the drama of the 
day. In deep ravines under the eastern side<i of cliffs, 
Night forwardly plants her foot even at noonday, and as 
Day retreats she steps into his trenches, skulking from tree 



THURSDAY. 289 

to tree, from fence to fence, until at last slie sits in his citadel 
and draws out her forces into the plain. It may be that the 
forenoon is brighter than the afternoon, not only because 
of the greater transparency of its atmosphere, but because 
we naturally look most into the west, as forward into the 
day, and so in the forenoon seethe sunny side of things, but 
in the afternoon, the shadow of every tree. 

The afternoon is now far advanced, and a fresh and 
leisurely wind is blowing over the river, making long 
reaches of bright ripples. The river has done its stint, and 
appears not to flow, but lie at its length reflecting the light, 
and the haze over the woods is like the inaudible panting, 
or rather the gentle perspiration of resting nature, rising 
from a myriad of pores into the attenuated atmosphere. 

On the 31st of March, one hundred and forty-two years 
before this, probably about this time in the afternoon, 
there were hurriedly paddling down this part of the river, 
betwe^i the pine woods which then fringed these banks, 
two white women and a boy, who had left an island at the 
mouth of the Contoocook before daybreak. They were 
slightly clad for the season, in English fashion, and handled 
their paddles unskillfully, but with nervous energy and de- 
termination, and at the bottom of their canoe lay the still 
bleeding scalps of ten of the aborigines. They were Hannah 
Dustan, and her nurse, Mary Neff, both of Haverhill, eigh- 
teen miles from the mouth of this river, and an English boy, 
named Samuel Lennardson, escaping from captivity among 
the Indians. On the 15th of March previous, Hannah 
Dustan had been compelled to rise from childbed, and, 
half-dressed, with one foot bare, accompanied by her nurse, 
commence an uncertain march, in still inclement weather, 
through the snow and the wilderness. She had seen her 
seven elder children flee with their father, but knew not of 
their fate. She had seen her infant's brains dashed out 



290 A WEEK. 

against an apple tree, and had left her own and her neigh- 
bors' dwellings in ashes. When she reached the wigwam of 
lier captor, situated on an island in the Merrimac, more than 
twenty miles above where we now are, she had been told 
that she and her nurse were soon to be taken to a distant 
Indian settlement, and there made to run the gauntlet 
naked. The family of this Indian consisted of two men, 
three women, and seven children, besides an English boy, 
whom she found a prisoner among them. Having deter- 
mind to attempt her escape, she instructed the boy to inquire 
of one of the men how he should dispatch an enemy in 
the quickest manner, and take his scalp. '' Strike 'em there," 
said he, placing his finger on his temple, and he also showed 
him how to take off the scalp. On the morning of the 31st 
she arose before daybreak, and awoke her nurse and the 
boy, and taking the Indians' tomahawks, the^- killed them all 
in their sleep, excepting one favorite boy, and one squaw 
who fled wounded with him to the woods. The English boy 
struck the Indian who had given him the information on the 
temple, as he had been directed. They then collected all 
the provision they could find, and took their master's toma- 
hawk and gun, and scuttling all the canoes but one, com- 
menced their flight to Haverhill, distant about sixty miles by 
the river. But after having proceeded a short distance, fear- 
ing that her story would not be believed if she shQuld escape 
to tell it, they returned to the silent wigwam, and taking off 
the scalps of the dead, put them into a bag as proofs of 
what they had doue, and then retracing their steps to the 
shore in the twilight, recommenced their voyage. 

Early this morning this deed was performed, and now, 
perchance, these tired women and this boy, their clothes 
stained with blood, and their minds racked with alternate 
resolution and fear, are making a hasty meal of parched 
corn and moose-meat, while their canoe glides under these 
pine roots whose stumps- are still standing on the bank. 



THURSDAY. 29I 

They are thinking of the dead whom they have left behind 
on that solitary isle far up the stream, and of the relentless 
living warriors who are in pursuit. Every w'ithered leaf 
which the winter has left seems to know their story, and in 
its rustling to repeat it and betray them. An Indian lurks 
behind every rock and pine, and their nerves cannot bear 
the tapping of a woodpecker. Or they forget their own 
dangers and their deeds in conjecturing the fate of their 
kindred, and whether, if they escape the Indians, they shall 
find the former still alive. They do not stop to cook their 
meals upon the bank, nor land, except to carry their canoe 
about the falls. The stolen birch forgets its master and 
does them good service, and the swollen current bears them 
swiftly along, with little need of the paddle, except to steer 
and keep them warm by exercise. For ice is floating in the 
river; the spring is opening ; the muskrat and the beaver 
are driven out of their holes by the flood ; deer gaze at them 
from the baiik : a few faint-singing forest birds, perchance, 
fly across the river to the northernmost shore ; the fishhawk 
sails and screams overhead, and geese fly over with a start- 
ling clang6r ; but they do not observe these things, or they 
speedily forget them. They do not smile or chat all day. 
Sometimes they pass an Indian grave surrounded by its 
paling on the bank, or the frame of a wigwam, with a few 
coals left behind, or the withered stalks still rustling in 
the Indian's solitary cornfield on the interval. The birch 
stripped of its bark, or the charred stump where a tree has 
been burned down to be made into a canoe, these are the 
only traces of man, — a fabulous wild man to us. On either 
side, the primeval forest stretches away uninterrupted to 
Canada or to the " South Sea" ; to the white man a drear 
and howling wilderness, but to the Indian a home, adapted 
to his nature, and cheerful as the smile of the Great Spirit. 
While we loiter here this autumn evening, looking for a 
spot retired enough, where we shall quietly rest to-night, 



292 



A WEEK. 



they thus, in that chilly March evening, one hundred and 
forty-two years before us, with wind and current favoring, 
have already glided out of sight, not to camp, as we shall at 
night, but while two sleep one will manage the canoe, and 
the swift stream bear them onward to the settlements, it may 
be, even to old John Lovewell's house on Salmon Brook to- 
night. 

According to the historian, they escaped as by a miracle 
all roving bands of Indians, and reached their homes in 
safety, with their trophies, for which the General Court paid 
them fifty pounds. The family of Hannah Dustan all as- 
sembled alive once more, except the infant whose brains 
were dashed out against the apple tree, and there have 
been many who in later times have lived to say that they 
had eaten of the fruit of that apple tree. 

This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since 
Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not 
the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical 
time by the English standard, nor did the English by the 
Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek. " We must look 
a long way back," says Raleigh, " to find the Romans giv- 
ing laws to nations, and their consuls bringing kings and 
princes bound in chains to Rome in triumph ; to see men 
go to Greece for wisdom, or Ophir for gold ; when now 
nothing remains but a poor paper remembrance of their 
former condition." And yet, in one sense, not so far back 
as to find the Penacooks and Pawtuckets using bows and 
arrows and hatchets of stone, on the banks of the Merri- 
mac. From this September afternoon, and from between 
these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more re- 
mote than the dark ages. On beholding an old picture of 
Concord, as it appeared but seventy-five years ago, with a 
fair open prospect and a light on trees and river, as if it 
were broad noon, I find that I had not thought the sun shone 



THURSDAY. 293 

in those days, or that men lived in broad daylight then. 
Still less do we imagine the sun shining on hill and valley 
during Philip's war, on the warpath of Church or Philip, or 
later of Lovewell or Paugus, with serene summer weather, 
but they must have lived and fought in a dim twilight or 
night. 

The age of the world is great enough for our imagina- 
tions, even according to the Mosaic account, without bor- 
rowing any years from the geologist. From Adam and Eve 
at one leap sheer down to the deluge, and then through the 
ancient monarchies, through Babylon and Thebes, Brahma 
and Abraham, to Greece and the Argonauts ; whence we 
might start again with Orpheus and the Trojan war, the Pyr- 
amids and the Olympic games, and Homer and Athens, for 
our stages ; and after a breathing space at the building of 
Rome, continue our journey down through Odin and Christ 

to America. It is a wearisome while. And yet the 

lives of but sixty old women, such as live under the hill, 
say of a century each, strung together, are sufficient to reach 
over the whole ground. Taking hold of hands they would 
span the interval from Eve to my own mother. A respecta- 
ble tea-party merely, — whose gossip would be Universal 
History. The fourth old woman from myself suckled Co- 
lumbus, — the ninth was nurse to the Norman Conqueror, — 
the nineteenth was the Virgin Mary, — the twenty-fourth the 
Cumgean Sibyl, — the thirtieth was at the Trojan war and 
Helen her name, — the thirty-eighth was Queen Semiramis, — 
the sixtieth was Eve the mother of mankind. So much for 
the 

old woman that lives under the hill. 
And if she's not gone she lives there still. 

It will not take a very great grand-daughter of hers to be 
in at the death of Time. 

We can never safely exceed the actual facts in our narra- 
tives. Of pure invention, such as some suppose, there is no 



294 A WEEK. 

instance. To write a true work of fiction even, is only to 
take leisure and liberty to describe some things more exactly 
as they are. A true account of the actual is the rarest 
poetry, for common sense always takes a hasty and super- 
ficial view. Though I am not much acquainted with the 
works of Goethe, I should say that it was one of his chief 
excellencies as a writer, that he is satisfied with giving an 
exact description of things as they appear to him, and then" 
effect upon him. Most travelers have not self-respect 
enough to do this simply, and make objects and events 
stand around them as the center, but still imagine more 
favorable positions and relations than the actual ones, and 
so we get no valuable report from them at all. In his Ital- 
ian Travels, Goethe jogs along at a snail's pace, but always 
mindful that the earth is beneath and the heavens are above 
him. His Italy is not merely the fatherland of lazzaroni 
and virtuosi, and scene of splendid ruins, but a solitl turf- 
clad soil, daily shined on by the sun, and nightly by the 
moon. Even the few showers are faithfully recorded. He 
speaks as an unconcerned spectator, whose object is faith- 
fully to describe what he sees, and that, for the most part, 
in the order in which he sees it. Even his reflections do not 
interfere with his descriptions. In one place he speaks of 
himself as giving so glowing and truthful a description of 
an old tower to the peasants who had gathered around him, 
that they who had been born and brought up in the neigh- 
borhood must needs look over their shoulders, " that," to 
use his own words, " they might behold with theit" eyes, 
what I had praised to their ears " — "and I added nothing, 
not even the ivy which for - centuries had decorated the 
walls." It would thus be possible for inferior minds to pro- 
duce invaluable books, if this very moderation were not the 
evidence of superiority ; for the wise are not so much wiser 
than others as respectors of their own wisdom. Some, poor 
in spirit, record plaintively only what has happened to them; 



THURSDAY. 



295 



but others how they have happened to the universe, and tlie 
judgment wliich they have awarded to circumstances. Above 
all, he possessed a hearty goocl-will to all men, and never 
wrote a cross or even careless word. On one occasion the 
post-boy sniveling " 9ignor perdonate, questa e la mia 
•patt'ia," he confesses that " to me, poor northerner, came 
something tear-like into the eyes." 

Goethe's whole education and life were those of the 
artist. He lacks the unconsciousness of the poet. In his 
autobiography he describes accurately the life of the author 
of Wilhelm Meister. For as there is in that book, mingletl 
with a rare and serene wisdom, a certain pettiness or ex- 
aggeration of trifles, wisdom applied to produce a con- 
strained and partial and merely well-bred man, — a magnify- 
ing of the theater till life itself is turned into a stage, for 
which it is our duty to study our parts well, and conduct 
with propriety and precision, — so in the autobiography, the 
fault of his education is, so to speak, its artistic complete- 
ness. Nature is hindered, though she prevails at last in 
making an unusually catholic impression on the boy. It is 
the life of a city boy, whose toys are pictures and works of 
art, whose wonders are the theater and kingly processions 
and crownings. As the youth studied minutely the order 
and the degrees in the imperial procession, and suffered 
none of its effect to be lost on him ; so the man aimed to 
secure a rank in society which would satisfy his notion of 
fitness and respectability. He was defrauded of much 
which the savage boy enjoys. Indeed he himself has oc- 
casion to say in this very autobiography, when at last he 
escapes into the woods without the gates. " Thus much is 
certain, tbat only the undefinible, wide-expanding feelings 
of youth and of uncultivated nations are adapted to the 
sublime, which, whenever it may be excited in us through 
external objects, since it is either formless or else molded 
into forms which are incomprehensible, must surround us 



296 A WEEK. 

with a grandeur v/hich we find above our reach." He 
further says of himself : " I had Hved among painters from 
my childhood, and had accustomed myself to look at oh 
jects, as they did, with reference to art." And this was his 
practice to the last. He was even too well-bred to be 
thoroughly bred. He says that he had had no intercourse 
with the lowest class of his towns-boys. The child should 
have the advantage of ignorance as well as of knowledge, 
and is fortunate if he gets his share of neglect and ex- 
posure. 

The laws of Nature break the rules of Art. 

The man of genius may at the same time be, indeed is 
commonly, an artist, but the two are not to be confounded. 
The man of genius, referred to mankind, is an originator, 
an inspired or demoniac man, who produces a perfect work 
in obedience to laws yet unexplored. The artist is he who 
detects and applies the law from observation of the works 
of genius, whether of man or nature. The artisan is he 
who merely applies the rules which others have detected. 
There has been no man of pure genius ; as there has been 
none wholly destitute of genius. 

Poetry is the mysticism of mankind. 

The expressions of the poet cannot be analyzed ; his 
sentence is one word, whose syllables are words. There 
are indeed no words quite worthy to be set to his music. 
But what matter if we do not hear the words always, if we 
hear the music ? 

Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not 
written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been 
inconceivably near to it. It is only by a miracle that poetry 
is written at all. It is not recoverable thought, but a hue 
caught from a vaster receding thought. 

A poem is one undivided, unimpeded expression fallen 
ripe into literature, and it is undividedly and unimpededly 
received by those for whom it was matured. 



THURSDAY. 297 

If you can speak what you will never hear, — if you can 
write what you will never read, you have done rare things. 

The work we choose should be our own, 
God lets alone. 

The unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of God. 

Deep are the foundations of sincerity. Even stone walls 
have their foundation below the frost. 

What is produced by a free stroke charms us, like the 
forms of lichens and leaves. There is a certain perfection 
in accident which we never consciously attain. Draw a 
blunt quill filled with ink over a sheet of paper, and fold the 
paper before the ink is dry, transversely to this line, and a 
delicately shaded and regular figure will be produced, in 
some respects more pleasing than an elaborate drawing. 

The talent of composition is very dangerous, — the strik- 
ing out the heart of life at a blow, as the Indian takes off a 
scalp. I feel as if my life had grown more outward when I 
can express it. 

On his journey from Brenner to Verona, Goethe writes : 
" The Tees flows now more gently, and makes in many 
places broad sands. On the land, near to the water, upon 
the hill-sides, everything is so closely planted one to an- 
other, that you think they must choke one another, — vine- 
yards, maize, mulberry trees, apples, pears, quirrces and nuts. 
The dwarf elder throws itself vigorously over the walls. 
Ivy grows with strong stems up the rocks, and spreads itself 
witle over them, the lizard glides through the intervals, and 
everything that wanders to and fro reminds one of the 
loveliest pictures of art. The women's tufts of hair bound 
up, the men's bare breasts and light jackets, the excellent 
oxen which they drive home from market, the little asses 
with their loads, — everything forms a living, animated 
Heinrich Roos. And now that it is evening, in the mild air 
a few clouds rest upon the mountains, in the heavens more 



298 A WEEK. 

stand still than move, and immediately after sunset the 
chirping of crickets begins to grow more loud ; then one 
feels for once at home in the world, and not as concealed 
or in exile. I am contented as though I had been born and 
brought up here, and were now returning from a Greenland 
or whaling voyage. Even the dust of my Fatherland, 
which is often whirled about the wagon, and which for so 
long a time I had not seen, is greeted. I'lie clock-and-bell 
jingling of the crickets is altogether lovely, penetrating, and 
agreeable. It sounds bravely when roguish boys whistle in 
emulation of a field of such songstresses. One fancies 
that they really enhance one another. Also the evening is 
perfectly mild as the day." 

" If one who dwelt in the south and came hither from the 
south, should hear my rapture hereupon, he would deem 
me very childish. Alas ! what I here express I have long 
known while I suffered under an unpropitious heaving, and 
now may I joyful feel this joy as an exception, which 
we should enjoy everforth as an eternal necessity of our 
nature." 

Thus we "sayled by thought and pleasaunce," as Chaucer 
says, and all things seemed with us to flow ; the shore it- 
self, and the distant chffs, were dissolved by the undiluted 
air. The hardest material seemed to obey the same law 
with the most fluid, and so indeed in the long run it does. 

Trees were but rivers of sap and woody fiber, flowing 
from the atmosphere, and emptying into the earth by their 
trunks, as their roots flowed upward to the surface. And 
in the heavens there were rivers of stars, and milky-ways, 
already beginning to gleam over our heads. There were 
rivers of rock on the surface of tlie earth, and rivers of ore 
in its bowels, and our thoughts flowed and circulated, and 
this portion of time was but the current hour. Let us wan- 
der where we will, the universe is built round about us, 



THURSDAY. 299 

and we are central still. If we look into the heavens they 
are concave, and if we were to look into a gulf as bottom- 
less, it would be concave also. The sky is curved down- 
ward to the earth in the horizon because we stand on the 
plain. I draw dowu its skirts. 'l"he stars so low there seem 
loth to depart, but by a circuitous path to be remembering 
me, and returning on their steps. 

We had already passed by broad daylight the scene of 
our encampment at Coos Falls, and at length we pitched our 
camp on the west bank, in the northern part of Merrimac, 
nearly opposite to the large island on which we had spent 
the noon on our way up the river. 

There we went to bed that summer evening, on a sloping 
shelf in the bank, a couple of rods from our boat, which was 
drawn up on the sand, and just behind a thin fringe of oaks 
which bordered the river ; without having disturbed any in- 
habitants but the spiders in the grass, which came out by 
the light of our lamp and crawled over our buffaloes. 

When we looked out from under the tent, the trees were 
seen dimly through the mist, and a cool dew hung upon 
the grass which seemed to rejoice in the night, and with 
the damp air we inhaled a solid fragrance. Having eaten 
our supper of hot cocoa and bread and watermelon, we 
soon grew weary of conversing and writing in our journals, 
and putting out the lantern which hung from the tent 
pole, fell asleep. 

Unfortunately many things have been omitted which 
should have been recorded in our j®urnal, for though we 
made it a rule to set down all our experiences therein, yet 
such a resolution is very hard to keep, for the important 
experience rarely allows us to remember such obligations, 
and so indifferent things get recorded, while that is fre- 
quently neglected. It is not easy to write in a journal what 
interests us at any time, because to write it is not what in- 
terests us. 



300 A WEEK, 

Whenever we awoke in the night, still eking out our 
dreams with half-awakened thoughts, it was not till after 
an interval, when the wind breathed harder than usual, 
flapping the curtains of the tent, and causing its cords to 
vibrate, that we remembered that we lay on the bank of the 
Merrimac, and not in our chamber at home. With our 
heads so low in the grass, we heard the river whirling and 
sucking, and lapsing downward, kissing the shore as it 
went, sometimes rippling louder than usual, and again its 
mighty current making only a slight limpid trickling sound, 
as if our water-pail had sprung a leak, and the water were 
flowing into the grass by our side. The wind, rustling the 
oaks and hazels, impressed us like a wakeful and incon- 
siderate person up at midnight, moving about and putting 
things to rights, occasionally stirring up whole drawers 
full of leaves at a puff. There seemed to be a great haste 
and preparation throughout Nature, as for a distinguished 
visitor ; all her aisles had to be swept in the night, by a 
thousand hand-maidens, and a thousand pots to be boiled 
for the next day's feasting ; — such a whispering bustle, as if 
ten thousand fairies made their fingers fly, silently sewing- 
at the new carpet with which the earth was to be clothed, 
and the new drapery which was to adorn the trees. And 
then the wind would lull and die away, and we like it fell 
asleep again. 



FRIDAY. 



The Boteman strayt 
Held on his course with stayed stedfastnesse, 
Ne ever shroncke, ne ever sought to bayt 
His tryed amies for toylesome wearinesse ; 
But with his oares did sweepe the watry wildernesse. 

Spenser. 
Summer's robe grows 
Dusky, arid like an oft-dyed garment shows. 

Donne. 



As we lay awake long before day-break, listening to the 
rippling of the river and the rustling of the leaves, in sus- 
pense whether the wind blew up or down the stream, was 
favorable or unfavorable to our voyage, we already sus- 
pected that there was a change in the weather, from a 
freshness as of autumn in these sounds. The wind in the 
woods sounded like an incessant waterfall dashing and 
roaring amid rocks, and we even felt encouraged by the 
unusual activity of the elements. He who hears the rip- 
pling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly 
despair. That night was the turning point in the season. 
We had gone to bed in summer, and we awoke in autumn ; 
for summer passes into autumn in some unimaginable point 
of time, like the turning of a leaf. 

We found our boat in the dawn just as we had left it, 
and as if waiting for us, there on the shore, in autumn, all 
cool and dripping with dew, and our tracks still fresh in 
the wet sand around it, the fairies all gone or concealed. 
Before five o'clock we pushed it into the fog, and leaping 
in, at one shove were out of sight of the shores, and began 

301 



302 A WEEK. 

to sweep downward with the rushing river, keeping- a sluirp 
lookout for rocks. We could see only the yellow gurgling 
water, and a solid bank of fog en every side forming a 
small yard around us. We soon passed the mouth of the 
Soiihegan and the village of Merrimac, and as the mist 
gradually rolled away, and we wfere relieved from the trou. 
ble of watching for rocks, we saw by the flitting clouds, by 
the first russet tinge on the hills, by the rushing river, the 
cottages on shore, and the shore itself, So coolly fresh and 
shining with dew, and later in the day, by the hue of the 
grape vine, the goldfinch on the willow, the flickers flying 
in flocks, and when we passed near enough to the. shore, as 
we fauTcied, by the faces of men, that the fall had com- 
menced. The cottages looked more snug and comfortable, 
and their inhabitants were seen only for a moment, and 
then went quietjy in and shut the door, retreating inward to 
the haunts of summer. 

And now the cold autumnal dews are seen 

To cobweb ev'ry green ; 
And by the low-shorn rowens doth appear 

The fast declining year. 

We heard the sigh of the first autumnal wind, and even 
the water had acquired a grayer hue. The sumach, grape, 
and maple were already changed, and the milkweed had 
turn'ed to a deep rich yellow. In all woods the leaves were 
fast ripening for their fall ; for thdr full veins and lively 
gloss mark the ripe leaf, and not the sered one of the poets ; 
and we knew that the maples, stripped of their leaves among 
the earliest, would soon stand like a wreath of smoke along 
the edge of the meadow. Already the cattle were heard to 
low wildly in the pastures and along the highways, rest- 
lessly running to and fro, as if in apprehension of the 
withering of the grass and of the approach of winter. Our 
thoughts, too, began to rustle. 



FRIDAY. 



3<^3 



As I pass along the streets of our village of Concord on 
the day of our annual cattle show, when it usually happens 
that the leaves of the elms and buttonvvoods begin first to 
strew the ground under the breath of the October wind, 
the lively spirits in their sap seem to mount as high as any 
plowboy's let loose that day ; and they lead my thoughts 
away to the rustling woods, where the trees are preparing 
for their winter campaign. This autumnal festival, when 
men are gathered in crowds in the streets as regularly and 
by as natural a law as the leaveS cluster and rustle by the 
wayside, is naturally associated in my mind with the fall 
of the year. The low of cattle in the streets sounds like a 
hoarse symphony or running bass to the rustling of the 
leaves. The wind goes hurrying down the country, glean- 
ing every loose straw that is left in the fields, while every 
farmer lad too appears to scud before it, — having donned 
his best pea-jacket and pepper and salt waistcoat, his un- 
bent trousers, outstanding rigging of duck, or kerseymere, 
or corduroy, and his furry hat withal, — to country fairs 
and cattle shows, to that Rome among the villages where 
the treasures of the year are gathered. All the land over 
they go leaping the fences with their tough idle palms, 
which have never learned to hang by their sides, amid the 
low of calves and the bleating of sheep, — Amos, Abner, 
Elnathan, Elbridge, 

From steep pine-bearing mountains (o the plain. 
I love these sons of earth, every mother's son of them, 
with their great hearty hearts rushing tumultuously in herds 
from spectacle to spectacle, as if fearful lest there should 
not be time between sun and sun to see them all, and the 
sun does not wait more than in haying time. 

Wise nature's darlings, they live in the world 
Perplexing not themselves how it is hurled. 

Running hither and thither with appetite for the coarse pas- 
times of the day, now with boisterous speed at the heels of 



■304 A WEEK. 

the inspired negro from whose larynx the melodies of all 
Congo and Guinea coast have broke loose into our streets ; 
now to see the procession of a hundred yoke of oxen, all as 
august and grave as Osiris, or the droves of neat cattle and 
milch cows as unspotted as Isis or lo. Such as had no love 
for Nature 

at all, 
Came lovers home from this great festival. 

They may bring their fattest cattle and richest fruits to the 
fair, but they are all eclipsed by the show of men. These 
are stirring autumn days, when men sweep by in crowds, 
amid the rustle of leaves, like migrating finches ; this is the 
true harvest of the year, when the air is but the breath of 
men, and the rustling of leaves is as the trampling of the 
crowd. We read nowadays of the ancient festivals, games, 
and processions of the Greeks and Etruscans with a little 
incredulity, or at least with little sympathy ; but how natu- 
ral and irrepressible in every people is some hearty and pal- 
pable greeting of Nature. The Corybantes, the Bacchantes, 
the rude primitive tragedians with their procession and goat- 
song, and the whole paraphernalia of the Panathensea, 
which appear so antiquated and peculiar, have their parallel 
now. The husbandman is always a better Greek than the 
scholar is prepared to appreciate, and the old custom still 
survives, while antiquarians and scholars grow gray in com- 
memorating it. The farmers crowd to the fair to-day in 
obedience to the same ancient law, which Solon or Lycurgus 
did not enact, as naturally as bees swarm and follow their 
queen. 

It is worth the while to see the country's people, how 
they pour into the town, the sober farmer folk, now all 
agog, their very shirt and coat collars pointing forward, — 
collars so broad a^ if they had put their shirts on wrong end 
upward, for the fashions always tend to superfluity, — and.with 
an unusual springiness in their gait, jabbering earnestly to 



FRIDAY. 305 

one another. The more supple vagabond, too, is sure to ap- 
pear on the least rumor of such a gathering, and the next 
day to disappear, and go into his hole like the seventeen- 
year locust, in an ever shabby coat, though finer than the 
farmer's best, yet never dressed : come to see the sport, 
and have a hand in what is going, — to know "what's the 
row," if there is any ; to be where some men are drunk, 
some horses race, some cockerels fight : anxious to be 
shaking props under a table, and above all to see the 
" striped pig." He especially is the creature of the occa- 
sion. He empties both his pockets and his character into 
the stream, and swims in such a day. He dearly loves the 
social slush. There is no reserve of soberness in him. 

I love to see the herd of men feeding heartily on coarse 
and succulent pleasures, as cattle on the husks and stalks 
of vegetables. Though there are many crooked and crab- 
bled specimens of humanity among them, run all to thorn 
and rind, and crowded out of shape by adverse circum- 
stances, like the third chestnut in the burr, so that you 
wonder to see some heads wear a whole hat, yet fear not 
that the race will fail or waver in them ; like the crabs 
which grow in hedges, they furnish the stocks of sweet and 
thrifty fruits still. Thus is nature recruited from age to 
age, while the fair and palatable varieties die out and have 
their period. This is that mankind. How cheap must be 
the material of which so many are made. 

The wind blew steadily down the stream, so that we kept 
our sails set, and lost not a moment of the forenoon by de- 
lays, but from early morning until noon, were continually 
dropping downward. With our hands on the steering pad- 
dle, which was thrust deep into the river, or bending to the 
oar, which indeed we rarely relinquished, we felt each pal- 
pitation in the veins of our steed, and each impulse of the 
win£s which drew us above. The current of our thoughts 



3o6 A WEEK. 

made as sudden bends as the river, which was continually 
opening new prospects to the east or south, but we are 
aware that rivers flow most rapidly and shallowest at these 
points. The steadfast shores never once turned aside for 
us, but still trended as they were made; why then, should 
we always turn aside for them ? 

A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his genius. It re- 
quires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the world 
demands or can appreciate. These winged thoughts are 
like birds, and will not be handled ; even hens will not let 
you touch them like quadrupeds. Nothing was ever so un- 
familiar and startling to a man as his own thoughts. 

To the rarest genius it is the most expensive to succumb 
and conform to the ways of the world. Genius is the worst 
of lumber, if the poet would float upon the breeze of popu- 
larity. The bird of paradise is obliged constantly to fly 
against the wind, lest its gay trappings, pressing close to its 
body, may impede its free movements. 

He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest 
points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the 
greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as 
the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does 
not blow from all points of the compass, there are some 
harbors which they can never reach. 

The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires 
peculiar institutions and edicts for his defense, but the 
toughest son of earth and of Heaven, and by his greater 
strength and endurance, his fainting companions will recog- 
nize the God in him. It is the worshipers of beauty, after 
all, who have done the real pioneer work of the world. 

The poet will prevail to be popular in spite of his faults, 
and in spite of his beauties too. He will hit the nail on the 
head, and we shall not know the shape of his hammer. He 
makes us free of his hearth and heart, which is greater than 
to offer one the freedom of a city. 



FRIDAY. 307 

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame 
among the great who have preceded them, and all true 
worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the 
stars. 

Orpheus does not hear the strains which issue from his lyre, 
but only those which are breathed into it ; for the original 
strain precedes the sound, by as much as the echo follows 
after ; the rest is the perquisite of the rocks and trees and 
beasts. 

When I stand in a library where is all the recorded wit of 
the world, but none of the recording; a mere accumulated, 
and not truly cumulative treasure, where immortal works 
stand side by side with anthologies which did not survive 
their month, and cobweb and mildew have already spread 
from these to the binding of those ; and happily I am re- 
m.inded of what poetry is. I perceive that Shakespeare and 
Milton did not foresee into what company they were to fall, 
Alas ! that so soon the work of a true poet should be swept 
into such a dust-hole ! 

The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remem- 
ber only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and 
expect the time when a vision as broad shall overlook the 
same field as freely. 

We are often prompted to speak our thoughts to our 
neighbors, or the single travelers whom we meet on the 
road, but poetry is a communication from our home and soli- 
tude addressed to all Intelligence. It never whispers in a 
private ear. Knowing this, we may understand those son- 
nets said to be addressed to particular persons, or " to a 
Mistress's Eyebrow." Let none feel flattered by them. 
For poetry write love, and it will be equally true. 

No doubt it is an important difference between men of 
genius or poets, and men not of genius, that the latter are 
unable to grasp and confront the thought which visits them. 
But it is because it is too faint for expression, or even con- 



3o8 A WEEK. 

scioLis impression. Wliat merely quickens or retards the 
blood in their veins and fills their afternoons with pleasure, 
they know not whence, conveys a distinct assurance to the 
finer organization of the poet. 

We talk of genius as if it were a mere knack, and the poet 
could only express what other men conceived. But in com- 
parison with his task, the poet is the least talented of any ; 
the writer of prose has more skill. See what talent the 
smith has. His material is pliant in his hands. When the 
poet is most inspired, is stimulated by an aura which never 
even colors the afternoons of common men, then his talent 
is all gone, and he is no longer a poet. The gods do not 
grant him any skill more than another. They never put 
their gifts into his hands, but they encompass and sustain 
him with their breath. 

To say that God has given a man many and great talents, 
frequently means, that he has brought his heavens down 
within the reach of his hands. 

When the poetic frenzy seizes us, we run and scratch 
with our pen, intent only on worms, calling our mates around 
us, like the cock, and delighting in the dust we make, but 
do not detect where the jewel lies, which, perhaps, we have 
in the meantime cast to a distance, or quite covered up 
again. 

The poet's body even is not fed simply like other men's, 
but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of 
the gods, and lives a divine life. By the healthful and in- 
vigorating thrills of inspiration his life is preserved to a 
serene old age. 

Some poems are for holidays only. They are polished 
and sweet, but it is the sweetness of sugar, and are not such 
as toil gives to sour bread. The breath with which the poet 
utters his verse must be that by which he lives. 

Great prose, of equal elevation, commands our respect 
more than great verse, since it implies a more permanent 



FRIDAY. 



309 



and level height, a life more pervaded with the grandeur of 
the thought. The poet often only makes an irruption, like 
a Parthian, and is off again, shooting while he retreats ; but 
the prose writer has conquered like a Roman, and settled 
colonies. 

The true poem is not that which the public read. There 
is always a poem not printed on paper, coincident with the pro- 
duction of this, stereotyped in the poet's life. It \% what he 
has become through his 71.101 k. Not how is the idea expressed 
in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how 
far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the 
artist. His true work will not stand in any prince's gallery. 

My life has been the poem I would have writ, 
But I could not both live and utter it. 

THE rOET'S DELAY. 

In vain I see the morning rise, 

In vain observe the western blaze, 
Who idly look to other skies, 

Expecting life by other ways. 

Amid such boundless wealth without, 

I only still am poor within, 
The birds have sung their summer out, 

But still my spring does not begin. 

Shall I then wait the autumn wind, 

Compelled to seek a milder day, 
And leare no curious nest behind. 

No woods still echoing to my lay ? 

This raw and gusty day, and the creaking of the oaks and 
pines on shore, reminded us of more northern climes than 
Greece, and more wintry seas than the ^gean. 

The genuine remains of Ossian, or those ancient poems 
which bear his name, though of less fame and extent, are in 
many respects of the same stamp with the Iliad itself. He 
asserts the dignity of the bard no less than Homer, and 



310 A WEEK. 

in his era we hear of no other priest than he. It will not 
avail to call him a heathen, because he personifies the sun 
and addresses it ; and what if his heroes did "worship the 
ghosts of their fathers," their thin, air}^, and unsubstantial 
forms ? we but worship the ghosts of our fathers in more sub- 
stantial forms. We cannot but respect the vigorous faith of 
those heathen, who sternly believed somewhat, and we are in- 
clined to say to the critics, who are offended by their super- 
stitious rites, — Don't interrupt these men's prayers. As if 
we knew more about human life and a God, than the heathen 
and ancients. Does English theology contain the recent 
discoveries ? 

Ossian reminds us of the most refined and rudest eras, of 
Homer, Pindar, Isaiah, and the American Indian. In his 
poetry, as in Homer's, only the simplest and most enduring 
features of humanity are seen, such essential parts of a man 
as Stonehenge exhibits of a temple ; we see the circles of 
stone, and the upright shaft alone. The phenomena of life 
acquire almost an unreal and gigantic size seen through his 
mists. Like all older and grander poetry, it is distinguished 
by the few elements in the lives of its heroes. They stand 
on the heath, between the stars and the earth, shrunk to the 
bones and sinews. The earth is a boundless plain for their 
deeds. They lead such a simple, dry, and everlasting life, 
as hardly needs depart with the flesh, but is transmitted 
entire from age to age. There are but few objects to dis- 
tract their sight, and their life is as unencumbered as the 
course of the stars they gaze at. 

The wrathful kings, on cairns apart, 
Look forward from behind their shields, 
And mark the wandering ?tars, 
That brilliant westward move. 

It does not cost much for these heroes to live ; they do not 
want much furniture. They are such forms of men only as 
can be seen afar through the mist, and have no costume nor 



FRIDAY. 311 

dialect, but for language there is the tongue itself, and for 
costume there are always the skins of beasts and the bark 
of trees to be had. They live out their years by theivigor 
of their constitutions. They survive storms and the spears 
of their foes, and perform a few heroic deeds, and then, 

Mounds will answer questions of them, 
For many future years. 

Blind and infirm, they spend the remnant of their days listen- 
ing to the lays of the bards, and feeling the weapons whigh 
laid their enemies low, and when at length they die, by a 
convulsion of nature, the bard allows us a short and misty 
glance into futurity, yet as clear, perchance, as their lives 
had been. When Mac-Roine was slain, 

His soul departed to his warlike sires, 
To follow misty forms, of boars, 
In tempestuous islands bleak. 

The hero's cairn is erected, and the bard sings a brief signifi- 
cant strain, which will suffice for epitaph and biography. 

The weak will find his bow in the dwelling, 
The feeble will attempt to bend it. 

Compared with this simple, fibrous life, our civilized his- 
tory appears the chronicle of debility, of fashion, and the 
arts of luxury. But the civilized man misses no real refine- 
ment in the poetry of the rudest era. It reminds him that 
civilization does but dress men. It makes shoes, but it 
does not toughen the soles of the feet. It makes cloth of 
finer texture, but it does not touch the skin. Inside the 
civilized man stands the savage still in the place of honor. 
We are those blue-eyed, yellow-haired Saxons, those slender, 
dark-haired Normans. 

The profession of the bard attracted more respect in 
those days from the importance attached to fame. It was 
his province to record the deeds of heroes. When Ossian 
hears the traditions of inferior bards, he exclaims : 



312 A WEEK. 

I straightway seize the unfutile tales, 
And send them down in faithful verse. 

His philosophy of life is expressed in the opening of the 
third Duan of Ca-Lodin. 

Whence have sprung the things that are ? 
And whither roll the passing years ? 
Where does Time conceal its two heads, 
In dense impenetrable gloom, 
Its surface marked with heroes' deeds alone ? 
■ ' I view the generations gone ; 

The past appears but dim ; 
As objects by the moon's faint beams, 
Reflected from a distant lake. 
I see, indeed, the thunderbolts of war, 
But there the unmighty joyless dwell, ' 
All those who send not down their deeds 
To far, succeeding times. 

The ignoble warriors die and are forgotten ; 

Strangers come to build a tower, 
And throw their ashes overhand ; 
Some rusted swords appear in dust ; 
One, bending forward, says, 
" The arms belonged to heroes gone ; 
We never heard their praise in song." 

The grandeur of the similes is another feature which 
characterizes great poetr3\ Ossian seems to speak a gigan- 
tic and universal language. The images and pictures oc- 
cupy even much space in the landscape, as if they could 
be seen only from the sides of mountains, and plains with a 
wide horizon, or across arms of the sea. The machinery 
is so massive that it cannot be less than natural. Oivana 
says to the spirit of her father, " Gray-haired Torkil of 
Torne," seen in the skies, 

Thou glidest away like receding ships. 

So when the hosts of Fingal and Starne approach to battle, 



FRIDAY. 313 



With murmurs loud, like rivers far, 
The race of Torne hither moved. 

And when compelled to retire, 

Dragging his spear behind, 
Cudulin sank in the distant wood, 
Like a fire upblazing ere it dies. 

Nor did Fingal want a proper audience when he spoke : 

A thousand orators inclined 
To hear the lay of Fingal. 

The threats, too, would have deterred a man. Vengeance 
and terror were real. Trenmore threatens the )'oung 
warrior whom he meets on a foreign strand, 

Thy mother shall find thee pale on the shore, 
While lessening on the waves she spies 
The sails of him who slew her son. 

If Ossian's heroes weep, it is from excess of strength, and 
not from weakness, a sacrifice or libation of fertile natures, 
like the perspiration of stone in summer's heat. We hardly 
know that tears had been shed, and it seems as if weeping 
were proper only for babes and heroes. Their joy and 
their sorrow are made of one stuff, like rain and snow, the 
rainbow and the mist. When Fillan was worsted in fight, 
and ashamed in the presence of Fingal, 

He strode away forthwith, 
And bent in grief above a stream. 
His cheeks bedewed with tears. 
From time to time the thistles gray 
He lopped with his inverted lance. 

Crodar, blind and old, receives Ossian, son of Fingal, who 
comes to aid him in war : 

" My eyes have failed," says he, " Crodar is blind. 
Is thy strength like that of thy fathers ? 
Stretch, Ossian, thine arm to the hoary-haired." 



314 A WEEK. 

I gave my arm to the kingf. 
The aged hero seized my hand ; 
He heaved a heavy sigh ; 
Tears flowed incessant down his cheek. 
" Strong art thou, son of the mighty, 
Though not so dreadful as Morven's prince. . . . 
Let my feast be spread in the hall, 
Let every sweet-voiced minstrel sing ; 
Great is he who is within my wall, 
Sons of wave-echoing Croma." 

Even Ossian himself, the hero-bard, pays tribute to the 
superior strength of his father Fingal. 

How beauteous, mighty man, was thy mind, 
Why succeeded Ossian without its strength ? 



While we sailed fleetly before the wind, with the river 
gurgling under our stern, the thoughts of autumn coursed 
as steadily through our minds, and we observed less what 
was passing on the shore, than the dateless associations and 
impressions which the season awakened, anticipating in some 
measure the progress of the year. 

I hearing get, who had but ears. 

And sight, who had but eyes before, 
I moments live, who lived but years. 

And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore . 

Sitting with our faces now up stream, we studied the 
landscape by degrees, as one unrolls a map, rock, tree, house, 
hill, and meadow, assuming new and varying positions as 
wind and water shifted the scene, and there was variety 
enough for our entertainment in the metamorphoses of the 
simplest objects. Viewed from this side, the scenery ap- 
peared new to us. 

The most familiar sheet of water, viewed from a new hill- 
top, yields a novel and une.xpected pleasure. When we 



FRIDAY. 315 

have traveled a few miles, we do not recognize the profiles 
even of the hills which overlook our native village, and per. 
haps no man is quite familiar with the horizon as seen from 
the hill nearest to his house, and can recall its outline dis- 
tinctly when in the valley. We do not commonly know, 
beyond a short distance, which way the hills range which 
take in our houses and farms in their sweep. As if our 
birth had at first sundered things, and we had been thrust 
up through into nature like a wedge ; and nor till the wound 
heals and the scar disappears, do we begin to discover where 
we are, and that nature is one and continuous everywhere. 
It is an important epoch when a man who has always lived 
on the east side of a mountain and seen it in the west, 
travels round and sees it in the east. Yet the universe is a 
spiiere whose center is wherever there is intelligence. The 
sun is not so central as a man. Upon an insolated hill-top, 
in an open country, we seem to ourselves to be standing on 
the boss of an immense shield, the immediate landscape be- 
ing apparently depressed below the more remote, and rising 
gradually to the horizon, which is the rim of the shield, villas 
steeples, forests, mountains, one above another, till they are 
swallowed up in the heavens. The most distant mountains 
appear to rise directl}' from the shore of that lake in the 
woods by which we chance to be standing, while from the 
mountain top, not only this, but a thousand nearer and 
larger lakes are equally unobserved. 

Seen through this clear atmosphere, the works of the 
farmer, his plowing and reaping, had a beauty to our eyes 
which he never saw. How fortunate were we who did not 
own an acre of these shores, who had not renounced our 
title to the whole. One who knew how to appropriate the 
true value of this world would be the poorest man in it. 
The poor rich man ! all he has is what he has bought. 
What I see is mine. I am a large owner in the Merrimac 
intervals. 



3l6 A WEEK. 

Men dig and dive but cannot my wealth spend, 

Who yet no partial store appropriate, 
Who no armed ship into the Indies send, 

To rob me of my orient estate. 

He is the rich man, and enjoys the frtiits of riches, who 
summer and winter forever can find delight in liis own 
thoughts. Buy a farm ! What have I to pay for a [arni 
which a farmer will take ? 

When I visit again some haunt of my youth, I am glad to 
find that nature wears so well. The landscape is iiuleed 
something real, and solid, and sincere, and I have not put 
my foot through it yet. There is a pleasant tract on the bank 
of the Concord, called Conantum, which I have in my mind ; 
the old deserted farmhouse, the desolate pasture with its 
bleak cliff, the open wood, the river reach, the green meadow 
in the midst, and the moss-grown wild-apple orchard, — 
places where one may have many thoughts and not decide 
anything. It is a scene which 1 cannot only remember, as 
I might a vision, but when I will can bodily revisit, and find 
it even so, unaccountable, yet unpretending in its pleasant 
dreariness. When my thoughts are sensible of change, I 
love to see and sit on the rocks which I have known, and pry 
into their moss, and see unchangeableness so established. I 
not yet gray on rocks forever gray, I no longer green under 
the evergreens. There is something even in the lapse of 
time by which time recovers itself. 

As we have said, it proved a cool as well as breezy day, 
and by the time we reached Penichook Brook, we were 
obliged to sit muffled in our cloaks, while the wind and current 
carried us along. We bounded swiftly over the rippling 
surface, far by many cultivated lands and the ends of fences 
which divided innumerable farms, with hardly a thought for 
the various lives which they separated, now by long rows 
of alders or groves of pines or oaks, and now by some home- 
stead where the women, and children stood outside to gaze 



FRIDAY. 317 

at us, till we had swept out of their sight, and beyond the limit 
of their longest Saturday ramble. We glided past the mouth 
of the Nashua, and not long after, of Salmon Brook, with- 
out more pause than the wind. 

Salmon Brook, 
Penichook, 
Ye sweet waters of my brain, 
When shall I look, 
Or cast the hook, 
In your waves again ? 

Silver eels, 
Wooden creels, 
These the baits that still allure, 
And drag;on-fly 
That floated by, — 
May they still endure ? 

The shadows chased one another swiftly over wood and 
meadow, and their alternation harmonized with our mood. 
We could distinguish the clouds which cast each one, 
though never so high in the heavens. Where a shadow flits 
across the landscape of the soul, where is the substance ? 
Probably, if we were wise enough, we should see to what 
virtue we are indebted for any happier moment we enjoy. 
No doubt we have earned it at some time ; for the gifts of 
Heaven are never quite gratuitous. The constant abrasion 
and decay of our lives makes the soil of our future growth. 
The wood which we now mature, when it becomes virgin 
mold, determines the character of our second growth, 
whether that be oaks or pines. Every man casts a shadow ; 
not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit ; this is 
his grief ; let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite 
to the sun ; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see 
it? But, referred to the sun, it is widest at its base, which 
is no greater than his own opacity. The divine light is dif- 
fused almost entirely around us, and by means of the refrac- 



3l8 A WEEK. 

tion of light, or else b}^ a certain self-Iuminousness, or, as 
some will have it, transparency, if we preserve ourselves 
untarnished, we are able to enlighten our shaded side. At 
any rate, our darkest grief has that bronze color of the moon 
eclipsed. There is no ill which may not be dissipated, like 
the dark, if yon let in a stronger light upon it. Shadows, 
referred to the source of light, are pyramids whose bases are 
never greater than those of thesubstances which cast them, 
but light is a spherical congeries of pyramids, whose very 
apexes are the sun itself, and hence the system shines with 
uninterrupted light. But if the light we use is but a paltry 
and narrow taper, most objects will cast a shadow wider 
than themselves. 

The places where we had stopped or spent the night on 
our way up the river, had already acquired a slight historical 
interest for us ; for many upward days' voyages were un- 
raveled in this rapid downward passage. When one landed 
to stretch his limbs by walking, he soon found himself fall- 
ing behind his companion, and was obliged to take advan- 
tage of the curves, and ford the '-rooks and ravines in haste, 
to recover his ground. Already the banks and the distant 
meadows wore a sober and deepened tinge, for the Septem- 
ber air had shorn them of their summer's pride. 

And what's a life ? The flourishing array 
Of the proud summer meadow, which to-day 
Wears her green plush, and is to-morrow hay. 

The air was really the "fine element" which the poets 
describe. It had a finer and sharper grain seen against the 
russet pastures and meadows, than before, as if cleansed of 
the summer's impurities. 

Having passed the New Hampshire line and reached the 
Horsehoe Interval in Tyngsboro', where there is a high and 
regular second bank, we climbed up this in haste to get a 
nearer sight of the autumnal flowers, asters, golden-rod, 



FRIDAY. 319 

and yarrow, and the tricJiostema dic/iotonia, humble road-side 
blossoms, and, lingering still, the harebell and the rhexia 
Virginica. The last, growing in patches of lively pink 
flowers on the edge of the meadows, had almost too gay an 
appearance for the rest of the landscape, like a pink ribbon 
on the bonnet of a Puritan woman. Asters and golden-rods 
were the livery which nature wore at present. The latter 
alone expressed all the ripeness of the season, and shed their 
mellow luster over the fields, as if the now declining summer's 
sun had bequeathed its hues to them. It is the floral sol- 
stice a little after mid-summer, when the particles of golden 
light, the sun-dust, have, as it were, fallen like seeds on 
the earth, and produced these blossoms. On every hillside, 
and in every valley, stood countless asters, coreopses, 
tansies, golden-rods, and the whole race of yellow flowers, 
like Brahminical devotees, turning steadily with their lu- 
minary from morning till night. 

I see the golden-rod shine bright, 

As sun-showers at the birth of day, 
A golden plume of yellow light, 

That robs the Day-god's splendid ray. 

The aster's violet rays divide 

The bank with many stars for me, 
And yarrow in blanch tints is dyed, 

As moonlight floats across the sea. 

I see the emerald woods prepare 

To shed iheir vestiture once more, 
And distant elm trees spot the air 

With yellow pictures softly o'er. ... 

No more the water-lily's pride 

In milk-white circles swims content, 
No more the blue-weed'siclusters ride 

And mock the heavens' element. . . . 

Autumn, thy wreath and mine are blent 
With the same colors, for to me 



320 A WEEK. 

A richer sky tban all is lent, 

While fades my dream-like company- 

Our skies glow purple, but the wind 

Sobs chill through green trees and bright grass. 

To-day shines fair, and lurk behind 
The times that inio winter pass. 

So fair we seem, so cold we are. 

So fast we hasten to decay, 
Yet through our night glows many a star, 

That still shall claim its sunny day. 

So sang a Concord poet once. 

There is a peculiar interest belonging- to the still later 
flowers, which abide with us the approach of winter. There 
is something witch-like in the appearance of the witch-hazel, 
which blossoms late in October and in November, with its 
irregular and angular spra_v and petals like furies' hair, or 
small ribbon streamers. Its blossoming, too, at this irregu- 
lar period, when other shrubs have lost their leaves as well 
as blossoms, looks like witches' craft. Certainly it blooms 
in no garden of man's. There is a whole fairy-land on the 
hill-side where it grows. 

Some have thought that the gales do not at present waft 
to the voyageur the natural and original fragrance of the 
land, such as the early navigators described, and that the 
loss of many odoriferous native plants, sweet-scented grasses 
and medicinal herbs, which formerly sweetened the atmos- 
phere and rendered it salubrious, by the grazing of cattle 
and the rooting of swine, is the^ source of many diseases 
which now prevail ; the earth, say they, having been long 
subjected to extremely artificial and luxurious modes of 
cultivation, to gratify the appetite, converted into a stye and 
hot-bed, where men for profit increase the ordinary decay 
of nature. 



FRIDAY. 321 

According to the record of an old inhabitant of Tyngs- 
boro', now dead, whose farm we were now gliding past, one 
of the greatest freshets on this river took place in October, 
1785, and its height was marked by a nail driven into an 
apple tree behind his house. One of his descendants has 
shown this to me, and I judged it to be at least seventeen 
or eighteen feet above the level of the river at the time. 
Before the Lowell and Nashua railroad was built, the engi- 
neer made inquiries of the inhabitants along the bank as to 
how high they had known the river to rise. When he 
came to this house he was conducted to the apple tree, and 
as the nail was not then visible, the lady of the house 
placed her hand on the trunk where she said that she re- 
membered the nail to have been from her childhood. In 
the meanwhile the old man put his arm inside the tree, 
which was hollow, and felt the point of the nail sticking 
through, and it was exactly opposite to her hand. The 
spot is now plainly marked by a notch in the bark. But as 
no one else remembered the river to have risen so high as 
this, the engineer disregarded this statement, and I learn 
that there has since been a freshet which rose within nine 
inches of the rails at Biscuit Brook, and such a freshet as 
that of 1785 would have covered the railroad two feet deep. 

The revolutions of nature tell as fine tales, and make as 
interesting revelations, on this river's banks, as on the 
Euphrates or the Nile. This apple tree, which stands 
within a few rods of the river, is called " Elisha's apple- 
tree," from a friendly Indian, who was anciently in the 
service of Jonathan Tyng, and, with one other man, was 
killed here by his own race in one of the Indian wars, — 
the particulars of which affair were told us on the spot. 
He was buried close by, no one knew exactly where, but 
in the flood of 1785, so great a weight of water standing 
over the grave, caused the earth to settle where it had once 
been disturbed, and when the flood went down, a sunken 



322 A WEEK. 

spot, exactly of the form and size of the grave, revealed its 
locality ; but this was now lost again, and no future flood 
can detect it ; yet, no doubt. Nature will know how to point 
it out in due time, if it be necessary, by methods yet more 
searching and unexpected. Thus there is not only the 
crisis when the spirit ceases to inspire and expand the body, 
marked by a fresh mound in the church-yard, but there is 
also a crisis when the body ceases to take up room as such 
in nature, marked by a fainter depression in the earth. 

We sat awhile to rest us here upon the brink of the 
western bank, surrounded by the glossy leaves of the red 
variety of the mountain laurel, just above the head of 
Wicasuck Island, where we could observe some scows 
which were loading with clay from the opposite shore, and 
also overlook the grounds of the farmer, of whom I have 
spoken, who once hospitably entertained us for a night. 
He had on his pleasant farm, besides an abundance of the 
beach-plum, or primus litloralis, which grew wild, the 
Canada plum under cultivation, fine Porter apples, some 
peaches, and large patches of musk and water melons, 
which he cultivated for the' Lowell market. Elisha's 
apple tree, too, bore a native fruit, which was prized by the 
family. He raised the blood peach, which, as he showed 
us with satisfaction, was more like the oak in the color of its 
bark and in the setting of its branches, and was less liable 
to break down under the weight of the fruit or the snow, 
than other varieties. It was of slower growth, and its 
branches strong and tough. There, also, was his nursery 
of native apple trees, thickly set upon the bank, which cost 
but little care, and which he sold to the neighboring 
farmers when they were five or six years old. To see a 
single peach upon its stem makes an impression of paradis- 
aical fertility and luxury. This reminds us even of an old 
Roman farm, as described by Varro : " Caesar Vopiscus 
yEdilicius, when he pleaded before the Censors, said that 



FRIDAY. 323 

the grounds of Rosea were the garden [siimcn the tid-bit) 
of Italy, in which a pole being left would not be visible the 
day after, on account of the growth of the herbage." 'J'his 
soil may not have been remarkably fertile, yet at this dis- 
tance we thought that this anecdote might be told of the 
Tyngsboro' farm. 

When we passed Wicasuck Island, there was a pleasure 
boat containing a youth and a maiden on the island brook, 
which we were pleased to see, since it proved that there 
were some hereabouts to whom our excursion would not be 
wholly strange. Before this, a canal-boatman, of whom we 
made some inquiries respecting Wicasuck Island, and who 
told us that it was disputed property, supposed that we had 
a claim upon it ; and though we assured him that all this 
was news to us, and explained, as well as we could, why we 
had come to see it, he believed not a word of it, and 
seriously offered us one hundred dollars for our title. The 
only other small boats which we met with were used to pick 
up drift-wood. Some of the poorer class along the stream 
collect, in tliis way, all the fuel which they require. \V'hile 
one of us landed not far from this island to forage for pro- 
visions among the farm-houses whose roofs we saw — for our 
supply was now exhausted — the other, sitting in the boat, 
which was moored to the shore, was left atone to his reflec- 
tions. 

If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveler al- 
ways has a resource in the skies. They are constantly 
turning a new page to view. The wind sets the types on 
this blue ground, and the inquiring may always read a new 
truth there. There are things there written with such fine 
and subtile tinctures, paler than the juice of limes, that to 
the diurnal eye they leave no trace, and only the chemistry 
of night reveals them. Every man's daylight firmament 
answers in his mind to the brightness of the vision in his 
starriest hour. 



324 A WEEK. 

These continents and hemispheres are soon run over, but 
an always unexplored and infinite region makes off on every 
side from the mind, further than to sunset, and we can 
make no highway or beaten track into it, but the grass im- 
mediately springs up in the path, for we travel there chiefly 
with our wings. 

Sometimes we see objects as through a thin haze in their 
eternal relations, and they stand like Palenque and the 
Pyramids, and we wonder who set them up, and for what 
purpose. If we see the reality in things, of what moment 
is the superficial and apparent longer ? What are the earth 
and all its interests beside the deep surmise which pierces 
and scatters them? While I sit here listening to the waves 
which ripple and break on this shore, I am absolved from 
all obligation to the past, and the council of nations may 
reconsider its votes. The grating of a pebble annuls them. 
Still occasionally in my dreams I remember that rippling 
water, 

Oft, as I turn me on my pillow o'er, 
I hear the lapse of waves upon the shore, 
Distinct as if it were at broad noon-day, 
And I were drifting down from Nashua. 

With a bending sail we glided rapidly by Tyngsboro' 
and Chelmsford, each holding in one hand half of a tart 
country apple-pie which we had purchased to celebrate our 
return, and in the other a fragment of the newspaper in 
which it was wrapped, devouring these with divided relish, 
and learning the news which had transpired since we sailed. 
The river here opened into a broad and straight reach of 
great length, which we bounded merrily over before a 
smacking breeze, with a devil-may-care look in our faces, 
and our boat a white bone in its mouth, and a speed which 
greatly astonished some scow boatmen whom we met. The 
wind in the horizon rolled like a flood over valley and plain, 
and every tree bent to the blast, and the mountains like 



FRIDAY. 



325 



school-bo3's turned their cheeks to it. They were great 
and current motions, the flowing sail, the running stream, 
the waving tree, the roving wind. The north wind stepped 
readily into the harness which we had provided, and pulled 
us alon;? with good will. Sometimes we sailed as gently 
and steadily as the clouds overhead, watching the receding 
shores and the motions of our sail ; the play of its pulse so 
like our own lives, so thin and yet so full of life, so noise- 
less when it labored hardest, so noisy and impatient when 
least effective ; now bending to some generous impulse of 
the breeze, and then fluttering and flapping with a kind of 
human suspense. It was the scale on which the varying 
temperature of distant atmospheres was graduated, and it 
was some attraction for us that the breeze it played with 
had been out of doors so long. Thus we sailed, not being 
able to fly, but as ne.xt best, making a long furrow in the 
fields of the Merrimac toward our home, with our wings 
spread, but never lifting our heel from the watery trench ; 
gracefully plowing homeward with our brisk and willing 
team, wind and stream, pulling together, the former yet a 
wild steer, yoked to his more sedate fellow. It was very 
near flying, as when the duck rushes through the water 
with an impulse of her wings, throwing the spray about 
her, before she can rise. How we had stuck fast if drawn 
lip but a few feet on the shore ! 

\Vhen we reached the great bend just above Middlesex, 
where the river runs east thirty- five miles to the sea, we at 
length lost the aid of this propitious wind, though we con- 
trived to make one long and judicious tack carry us nearly 
to the locks of the canal. We were here locked through at 
noon by our old friend, the lover of the higher mathematics, 
who seemed glad to see us safe back again through so 
many locks ; but we did not stop to consider any of his 
problems, though we could cheerfully have spent a whole 
autumn in this way another time, and never have asked 



3:6_ A WEEK. 

what his religion was. It is so rare to meet with a man 
out-doors who cherishes a worthy thought in his mind, 
which is independent of the labor of his hands. Behind 
every man's busy-ness there should be a level of undis- 
turbed serenity and industry, as within the reef encircling 
a coral isle there is always an expanse of still water, where 
the depositions are going on which will finally raise it 
above the surface. 

The eye which can appreciate the naked and absolute 
beauty of scientific truth is far more rare than that which is 
attracted by a moral one. Few detect the morality in the 
former, or the science in the latter. Aristotle defined art 
to be Aoyo? tov e'pyou avev fA?/?^ ///<? principle of the 7vork 
without the tvood j but most men prefer to have some of the 
wood along with the principle ; they demand that the truth 
be clothed in flesh and blood and the warm colors of life. 
They prefer the partial statement because it fits and meas- 
ures them and their commodities best. But science still 
exists everywhere as the sealer of weights and measures at 
least. 

We have heard much abou the poetry of mathematics, 
but very little of it has yet been sung. The ancients had a 
juster notion of their poetic value than we. The most dis- 
tinct and beautiful statement of any truth must take at last 
the mathematical form. We might so simplify the rules of 
moral philosophy, as well as of arithmetic, that one formula 
would express them both. All the moral laws are readily 
translated into natural philosophy, for often we have only 
to restore the primitive meaning of the words by which they 
are expressed, or to attend to their literal instead of their 
metaphorical sense. They are already j///i^/-//rt'///;-rt'/ philos- 
ophy. The whole body of what is now called moral or 
ethical truth existed in the golden age as abstract science. 
-Or, if we prefer, we may say that the laws of Nature are the 



FRIDAY. 327 

purest morality. The Tree of Knowledge is a Tree of 
Knowledge of good and evil. He is not a true man of sci- 
ence who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and 
expect to learn something by behavior as well as by applica- 
tion. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coinci- 
dences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of 
geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is 
applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathe- 
matics should be mixed not only with physics but with 
ethics, that is mixed mathematics. The fact which interests 
us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is 
still biographical. Nothing will dignify and elevate science 
while it is sundered so wholly from the moral life of its devo- 
tee, and he professes another religion than it teaches, and 
worships at a foreign shrine. Anciently the faith of a phil- 
osopher was identical with his system, or, in other words, 
his view of the universe. 

My friends mistake when they communicate facts to me 
with so much pains. Their presence, even their exagger- 
ations and loose statements, are equally good facts for me. 
I have no respect for facts even, except when I would use 
them, and for the most part I am independent of those which 
I hear, and can afford to be inaccurate, or, in other words, 
to substitute more present and pressing facts in their place. 

The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and 
generalizes their widest deductions. 

The process of discovery is very simple. An unwearied 
and systematic application of known laws to nature, cause-s 
the unknown to reveal themselves. Almost any mode of ob- 
servation will be successful at last, for what is most wanted 
is method. Only let something be determined and fixed, 
around which observation may rally. How many new rela- 
tions a foot-rule alone will reveal, and to how many things 
still this has not been applied ! What wonderful discoveries 
have been, and may still be made, with a plumb-line, a 



328 A WEEK. 

level, a surveyor's compass, a thermometer, or a barometer ! 
Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect 
that any eyes will see new worlds at once. I should say that 
the most prominent scientific men of our country, and per- 
haps of this age, are either serving the arts and not pure 
science, or are performing faithful but quiet subordinate 
labors in particular departments. They make no steady and 
systematic approaches to the central fact. A discovery is 
made, and at once the attention of all observers is distracted 
to that, and it draws many analogous discoveries in its train ; 
as if their work were not already laid out for them, but they 
had been lying on their oars. There is wanting constant 
and accurate observation with enough of theory to direct 
and discipline it. 

But above all, there is wanting genius. Our books of 
science, as they improve in accuracy, are in danger of 
losing the freshness and vigor and readiness to appreciate 
the real laws of Nature, which is a marked merit in the oft- 
times false theories of the ancients. I am attracted by tl>e 
slight pride and satisfaction, the emphatic and even exag- 
gerated style in which some of the older naturalists speak 
of the operations of Nature, though they are better qualified 
to appreciate than to discriminate the facts. Their asser- 
tions are not without value when disproved. If they are 
not facts, they are suggestions for Nature herself to act 
upon. "The Greeks," says Gesner, "had a common pro- 
verb [ylayo? na^Evdov) a sleeping hare, for a dissembler 
or counterfeit ; because the hare sees when she sleeps ; for 
this is an admirable and rare work of Nature, that all the 
residue of her bodily parts take their rest, but the eye 
standeth continually sentinel." 

Observation is so wide awake, and facts are being so 
rapidly added to the sum of human experience, that it ap- 
pears as if the theorizer would always be in arrears, and 
were doomed forever to arrive at imperfect conclusions; 



FRIDAY. 329 

but the power to perceive a law is equally rare in all ages 
of the world, and depends but little on the number of facts 
observed. The senses of the savage will furnish him with 
facts enough to set him up as a philosopher. The ancients 
can still speak to us with authority, even on the themes of 
geology and chemistry, though these studies are thought to 
have had their birth in modern times. Much is said about 
the progress of science in these centuries. I should say 
that the useful results of science had accumulated,- but that 
there had been no accumulation of knowledge, strictly 
speaking, for posterity ; for knowledge is to be acquired 
only by a corresponding experience. How can we know 
what we are told merely ? Each man can interpret another's 
experience only by his own. We read that Newton dis- 
covered the law of gravitation, but how many who have 
heard of his famous discovery have recognized the same 
truth that he did? It may be not one. The revelation 
which was then made to him has not been superseded by 
the revelation made to any successor. 

We see iht planet fall, 
And that is all. 

In a review of Sir James Clark Ross's Antarctic Vo3'age 
of Discovery, there is a passage which shows how far a 
body of men are commonly impressed by an object of sub- 
limity, and which is also a good instance of the step from 
the sublime to the ridiculous. After describing the dis- 
covery of the Antarctic Continent, at first seen a hundred 
miles distant over fields of ice, — stupendous ranges of 
mountains from seven and eight to twelve and fourteen 
thousand feet high, covered with eternal snow and ice, in 
solitary and inaccessible grandeur, at one time the weather 
being beautifully clear,, and the sun shining on the icy land- 
scape ; a continent whose islands only are accessible, and 
these exhibited '*"not the smallest trace of vegetation," only 



330 A WEEK. 

in a few places the rocks protruding through their icy 
covering, to convince the beholder that land formed the 
nucleus, and that it was not an iceberg;— the practical 
British reviewer proceeds thus, sticking to his last : " On 
the 22d of January, afternoon, the Expedition made the 
latitude of 74° 20', and by 7 p.m., having ground to believe 
that they were then in a higher southern latitude than had 
been attained by that enterprising seaman, the late Captain 
James Weddel, and therefore higher than all their prede- 
cessors, an extra allowance of grog was issued to the crews 
as a reward for their perseverance." 

Let not us sailors of late centuries take upon ourselves 
any airs on account of our Newtons and our Cuviers. We 
deserve an extra allowance of grog only. 

We endeavored in vain to persuade the wind to blow 
through the long corridor of the canal, which is here cut 
straight through the woods, and were obliged to resort to 
our old expedient of drawing by a cord. When we reached 
the Concord, we were forced to row once more in good 
earnest, with neither wind nor current in our favor, but by 
this time the rawness of the day had disappeared, and we 
experienced the warmth of a summer afternoon. This 
change in the weather was more favorable to our contem- 
plative mood, and disposed us to dream yet deeper at our 
oars, while we floated in imagination further down the 
stream of time, as we had floated down the stream of the 
Merrimac, to poets of a milder period than had engaged 
us in the morning. Chelmsford and Billerica appeared like 
old English towns, compared with Merrimac and Nashua, 
and many generations of civil poets might have lived and 
sung here. 

What a contrast between the stern and desolate poetry 
of Ossian, and that of Chaucer, and even of Shakespeare 



FRIDAY. 



331 



and Milton, much more of Dryden, and Pope, and Gray. 
Our summer of English poetry, like the Greek and Latin 
before it, seems well advanced toward its fall, and laden 
with the fruit and foliage of the season, with bright au- 
tumnal tints, but soon the winter will scatter its myriad 
clustering and shading leaves, and leave only a few deso- 
late and fibrous boughs to sustain the snow and rime, and 
creak in the blasts of ages. We cannot escape the impres- 
sion that the Muse has stooped a little in her flight, when 
we come to the literature of civilized eras. Now first we 
hear of various ages and styles of poetry ; it is pastoral, 
and lyric, and narrative, and didactic ; but the poetry of 
runic monuments is of one style, and for every age. The 
bard has in a great measure lost the dignity and sacredness 
of his office. Formerly he was called a seer, but now it is 
thought that one man sees as much as another. He has no 
longer the bardic rage, and only conceives the deed, which 
he formerly stood ready to perform. Hosts of warriors, 
earnest for battle, could not mistake nor dispense with the 
ancient bard. His lays were heard in the pauses of the 
fight. There was no danger of his being overlooked by his 
contemporaries. But now the hero and the bard are of 
different professions. When we come to the pleasant 
English verse, the storms have all cleared away, and it will 
never thunder and lighten more. The poet has come within 
doors, and exchanged the forest and crag for the fireside, 
the hut of the Gael, and Stonehenge with its circles of 
stones, for the house of the Englishman. No hero stands 
at the door prepared to break forth into song or heroic 
action, but a homely Englishman, who cultivates the art of 
poetry. We see the comfortable fireside and hear the 
crackling fagots in all the verse. 

Notwithstanding the broad humanity of Chaucer, and the 
many social and domestic conforts which we meet with in 
his verse, we have to narrow our vision somewhat to consider 



332 A WEEK. 

him, as if he occupied less space in tlie landscape, and did 
not stretch over hil! and valley as Ossian does. Yet, seen 
from the side of posterity, as the father of English poetry, 
preceded by a long silence or confusion in history, un- 
enlivened by any strain of pure melody, we easily come to 
reverence him. Passing over the earlier continental poets, 
since we are bound to the pleasant archipelago of English 
poetry, Chaucer's is the first name after that misty weather 
in which Ossian lived, which can detain us long. Indeed, 
though he represents so different a culture and society, he 
may be regarded as in many respects the Homer of the En- 
glish poets. Perhaps he is the youthfulest of them all. We 
return to him as to the purest well, the fountain furthest re- 
moved from the highway of desultory life. He is so natural 
and cheerful, compared with later poets, that we might al- 
most regard him as a personification of spring. To the 
faithful reader his muse has even given an aspect to his 
times, and when he is fresh from perusing him, they seem 
related to the golden age. It is still the poetry of youth 
and life, rather than of thought ; and though the moral 
vein is obvious and constant, it has not yet banished the sun 
and daylight from his verse. The loftiest strains of the 
muse are, for the most part, sublimely plaintive, and not a 
carol as free as Nature's. The content which the sun shines 
to celebrate from morning to evening, is unsung. The muse 
solaces herself, and is not ravished but consoled. There is 
a catastrophe implied, and a tragic element in all our verse, 
and less of the lark and morning dews, than of the night- 
ingale and evening shades. But in Homer and Chaucer 
there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth, than 
in the more modern and moral poets. The Iliad is not 
Sabbath but morning reading, and men cling to this old song, 
because they still have moments of unbaptised and uncom- 
mitted life, which gives them an appetite for more. To the 
innocent there are neither cherubim nor angels. At rare 



FRIDAY. 



333 



intervals we rise above the necessity of virtue into an un- 
changeable morning light, in which we have only to live 
right on and breathe the ambrosial air. The Iliad repre- 
sents no creed nor opinion, and we read it with a rare sense 
of freedom and irresponsibility, as if we trod on native 
ground, and were autochthones of the soil. 

Chaucer had eminently the habits of a literary man and a 
scholar. There were never any times so stirring that there 
were not to be found some sedentary still. He was sur- 
rounded by the din of arms. The battles of Hallidon Hill 
and Neville's Cross, and the still more memorable battles of 
Cressy and Poictiers, were fought in his youth ; but these 
did not concern our poet much, Wickliffe and his reform 
much more. He regarded himself always as one privileged 
to sit and converse with books. He helped to establish the 
literary class. His character as one of the fathers of the 
English language, would alone make his works important, 
even those which have little poetical merit. He was as sim- 
ple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous 
Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had 
not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered 
a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered 
to Italy. If Greek sufificeth for Greek, and Arabic for 
Arabian, and Hebrew for Jew, and Latin for Latin, then 
English shall suffice for him, for any of these will serve to 
teach truth" right as divers pathes leaden divers folke the 
right waye to Rome." In the Testament of Love he writes, 
" Let then cierkes enditen in Latin, for they have the propertie 
of science, and the knowinge in that facuitie,and lette French- 
men in their Frenche also enditen their queinte termes, for it 
is kyndely to their mouthes, and let us shewe our fantasies 
in soche wonles as we lerneden of our dames tonge." 

He will know how to appreciate Chaucer best, who has 
come down to him the natural way, through the meager 
pastures of Saxon and ante-Chaucerian poetry ; and ye so 



334 ^ WEEK. 

human and wise he appears after such diet, that we are Ha- 
ble to misjudge him still. In the Saxon poetry extant, in the 
earliest English and the contemporary Scottish poetry, there 
is less to remind the reader of the rudeness and vigor of 
youth, than of the feebleness of a declining age. It is for the 
most part translation or imitation merely, with only an occa- 
sional and slight tinge of poetry, oftentimes the falsehood 
and exaggeration of fable, without its imagination to redeem 
it; and we look in vain to find antiquity restored, humanized, 
and made blithe again by some natural sympathy between 
it and the present. But Chaucer is fresh and modern still, 
and no dust settles on his true passages. It lightens along 
the line, and we are reminded that flowers have bloomed, 
and birds sung, and hearts beaten, in England. Before the 
earnest gaze of the reader, the rust and moss of time grad- 
ually drop off, and the original green life is revealed. He 
was a homely and domestic man, and did breathe quite as 
modern men do. 

There is no wisdom that can take the place of humanity, 
and we find that in Chaucer. We can expand at last in his 
breadth, and we think that we could have been that man's 
acquaintance. He was worthy to be a citizen of England, 
while Petrarch and Boccacio lived in Italy, and Tell and 
Tamerlane in Switzerland and in Asia, and Bruce in Scot- 
land, and Wickliffe, and Gower, and Edward the Third, and 
John of Gaunt, and the Black Prince, were his own country- 
men as well as contemporaries ; all stout and stirring names. 
The fame of Roger Bacon came down from the preceding 
century, and the name of Dante still possessed the influence 
of a living presence. On the whole, Chaucer impresses us as 
greater than his reputation, and not a little like Homer and 
Shakespeare, for he would have held up his head in their 
company. Among early English poets he is the landlord and 
host, and has the authority of such. The affectionate men- 
tion which succeeding early poets make of him, coupling him 



FRIDAY. 335 

with Homer and Virgil, is to be taken into tlie account in esti- 
mating his character and influence. King James and Dun- 
bar of Scotland speak of him with more love and reverence 
than any modern author of liis predecessors of the last cen- 
tury. The same childlike relation is without a parallel now. 
For the most part we read him without criticism, for he does 
not plead his own cause, but speaks for his readers, and has 
that greatness of trust and reliance which compels popular- 
ity. He confides in the reader, and speaks privily with him, 
keeping nothing back. And in return the reader has great 
confidence in him that he tells no lies, and reads, his story 
with indulgence, as if it were the circumlocution of a child, but 
often discovers afterward that he had spoken with more di- 
rectness and economy of words than a sage. He is never 
heartless. 

For first the thing is thought within the hart, 

Er any word out from the mouth astart. 

And so new was all his theme in those days, that he did 
not have to invent, but only to tell. 

We admire Chaucer for his sturdy English wit. The easy 
height he speaks from in his Prologue to the Canterbury 
Tales, as if he were equal to any of the company there 
assembled, is as good as any particular excellence in it. 
But though it is full of good sense and humanity, it is 
not transcendent poetry. For picturesque description of 
persons it is, perhaps, without a parallel in English poetry ; 
yet it is essentially humorous, as the loftiest genius never is. 
Humor, however broad and genial, takes a narrower view 
than enthusiasm. To his own finer vein he added all the 
common wit and wisdom of his time, and everywhere in his 
works his remarkable knowledge of the world and nice 
perception of character, his rare common sense and pro- 
verbial wisdom, are apparent. His genius does not soar 
like Milton's, but is genial and familiar. It shows great 
tenderness and delicacy, but not the heroic sentiment. It is 



^^6 A WEEK. 

only a greater portion of humanity with all its weakness. 
He is not heroic, as Raleigh, nor pious, as Herbert, nor 
philosophical, as Shakespeare, but he is the child of the 
English muse, that child which is the father of the man. 
The charm of his poetry consists often only in an exceeding 
naturalness, perfect sincerity, with the behavior of a child 
rather than of a man. 

Gentleness and delicacy of character are everywhere 
apparent in his verse. The simplest and humblest words 
Come readily to his lips. No one can read the Prioress's 
tale, understanding the spirit in which it was written, and in 
which the child sings, O alma redeinptoris mater, or the 
account of the departure of Constance with her child upon 
the sea, in the I\Ian of Lawe's tale, without feeling the native 
innocence and refinement of the author. Nor can we be 
mistaken respecting the essential purity of his character, 
disregarding the apology of the manners of the age. A 
simple pathos and feminine gentleness, which Wordsworth 
only occasionally approaches, but does not equal, are 
peculiar to him. We are tempted to say that his genius was 
feminine, not masculine. It was such a feminineness, how- 
ever, as is rarest to find in woman, though not the apprecia- 
tion of it ; perhaps it is not to be found at all in woman, 
but is only the feminine in man. 

Such pure, and genuine, and childlike love of Nature is 
hardly to be found in any poet. 

Chaucer's remarkably trustful and affectionate character 
appears in his familiar, yet innocent and reverent maniier of 
speaking of his God. He comes into his thought without 
any false reverence, and with no more parade than the 
zephyr to his ear. If Nature is our mother, then God is 
our father. There is less love and simple practical trust in 
Shakespeare and Milton. How rarely in our English 
tongue do we find expressed any affection for God. Cer- 
tainly, there is no sentiment so rare as the love of God. 



FRIDAY. 337 

Herbert almost alone expresses it. " Ah, my dear God ! " 
Our poet uses similar words with propriet}-, and whenever 
he sees a beautiful person or other object, prides herself on 
the " maistry " of his God. He even recommends Dido to 
be his bride, 

If that God that heaven and yearth made, 
Would have a love for beauty and goodnesse, 
And womanhede, trouth, and semeliness. 

But in justification of our praise, we must refer to his 
works themselves ; to the Prologue to the Canterbury 
Tales, the account of Gentilesse, the Flower and the Leaf, 
the stories of Griselda, Virginia, Ariadne, and Blanche the 
Dutchesse, and much more of less distinguished merit. 
There are many poets of more taste and better manners, 
who knew how to leave out their dullness, but such nega- 
tive genius cannot detain us long; we shall return to 
Chaucer still with love. Some natures which are really 
rude and ill developed, have yet a higher standard of per- 
fection than others which are refined and well balanced. 
Even the clown has taste, whose dictates, though he dis- 
regards them, are higher and purer than those which the 
artist obeys. If we have to wander through many dull and 
prosaic passages in Chaucer, we have at least the satis- 
faction of knowing that it is not an artificial dullness, but 
too easily matched by many passages in life. We confess 
that we feel a disposition commonly to concentrate sweets, 
and accumulate pleasures, but the poet may be presumed 
always to speak as a traveler, who leads us through a varied 
scenery, from one eminence to another, and it is, perhaps, 
more pleasing, after all, to meet with a fine thought in its 
natural setting. Surely fate has enshrined it in these 
circumstances for some end. Nature strews her nuts and 
flowers broadcast, and never collects them into heaps. 
This was the soil it grew in, and this the hour it bloomed 



338 A WEEK. 

in ; if sun, wind, and rain came liere to cherish and expand 
the flower, shall not we come here to pluck it? 

A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous 
expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmos- 
phere which surrounds it. Most have beauty of outline 
merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a 
stranger, but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as 
the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their 
spirit and fragrance. Much of our poetry has the very 
best manners, but no character. It is only an unusual 
precision and elasticity of speech, as if its author had 
taken, not an intoxicating draught, but an electuary. It 
has the distinct outline of sculpture, and chronicles an 
early hour. Under the influence of passion all men speak 
thus distinctly, but wrath is not always divine. 

There are two classes of men called poets. The one 
cultivates life, the other art, — one seeks food for nutriment, 
the other for flavor ; one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies 
the palate. There are two kinds of writing, both great and 
rare ; one that of genius or the inspired, the other of intel- 
lect and taste, in the intervals of inspiration. The former 
is above criticism, always correct, giving the law to criticism. 
It vibrates and pulsates with life forever. It is sacred and 
to be read with reverence, as the works of nature are studied. 
There are few instances of a sustained style of this kind ; 
perhaps every man has spoken words, but the speaker is 
then careless of the record. Such a style removes us out of 
personal relations with its author, we do not take his words 
on our lips, but his sense into our hearts. It is the stream 
of inspiration, which bubbles out, now here, now there, now 
in this man, now in that. It matters not through what ice- 
crystals it is seen, now a fountain, now the ocean stream 
running underground. It is in Shakespeare, Alpheus, in 
Burns, Arethuse ; but ever the same. The other is self- 



FRIDAY, 339 

possessed and wise. It is reverent of genius, and greedy of 
inspiration. It is conscious in the highest and the least 
degree. It consists with the most perfect command of the 
faculties. It dwells in a repose as of the desert, and objects 
are as distinct in it as oases or palms in the horizon cf 
sand. The train of thought moves with subdued and 
measured step, like a caravan. But the pen is only an 
instrument in its hand, and not instinct with life, like a 
longer arm. It leaves a thin varnish or glaze over all its 
work. The works of Goethe furnish remarkable instances 
of the latter. 

There is no just and serene criticism as yet. Nothing is 
considered simply as it lies in the lap of eternal beauty, but 
our thoughts, as well as our bodies, must be dressed after 
the latest fashions. Our taste is too delicate and particular. 
It says nay to the poet*s work, but never yea to his hope. 
It invites him to adorn his deformities, and not to cast them 
off by expansion, as the tree its bark. We are a people who 
live in a bright light, in houses of pearl and porcelain, and 
drink only light wines, whose teeth are easily set on edge 
by the least natural sour. If we had been consulted, the 
backbone of the earth would have been made, not of gran- 
ite, but of Bristol spar. A modern author would have died 
in infancy in a ruder age. But the poet is something more 
than a scald, " a smoother and polisher of language " ; he is 
a Cincinnatus in literature, and occupies no west end of the 
world. Like the sun, he will indifferently select his rhymes, 
and with a liberal taste weave into his verse the planet and 
the stubble. 

In these old books the stucco has long since crumbled 
away, and we read what was sculptured in the granite. They 
are rude and massive in their proportions rather than 
smooth and delicate in their finish. The workers in stone 
polish only their chimney ornaments, but their pyramids are 
roughly done. There is a soberness in a rough aspect, as 



340 A WEEK. 

of unhewn granite, which addresses a depth in us, but a 
pohshed surface hits only the ball of the eye. The true 
finish is the work of time and the use to which a thing is 
put. The elements are still polishing the pyramids. Art 
may varnish and gild, but it can do no more. A work of 
genius is rough-hewn from the first, because it anticipates 
the lapse of time, and has an ingrained polish, which still 
appears when fragments are broken off, an essential quality 
of its substance. Its beauty is at the same time its strength, 
and it breaks with a luster. 

The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well 
as its essence. The reader easily goes within the shallowest 
contemporary poetry, and informs it with all the life and 
promise of the day, as the pilgrim goes within the temple, 
and hears the faintest strains of the worshipers ; but it will 
have to speak to posterity, traversing these deserts, through 
the ruins of its outmost walls, by the grandeur and beauty 
of its proportions. 

But here on the stream of the Concord, where we have all 
the while been bodily. Nature, who is superior to all styles 
and ages, is now, with pensive face, composing her poem 
Autumn, with which no work of man will bear to be com- 
pared. 

In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses 
and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait com- 
monly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and 
wholly new life, which no man has lived ; that even this 
earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants 
than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we 
see the portals to other mansions than those which we 
occupy, not far off geographically. 

There is a place beyond that flaming hill, 

From whence the stars their thin appearance shed, 

A place beyond all place, where never ill 
Nor impure thought was ever harbored. 



FRIDAY. 34 1 

Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature, not his 
Father but his Mother stirs within him, and he becomes 
immortal with her immortality. From time to time she 
claims kindredship with us, and some globule from her veins 
steals up into our own. 

I am the autumnal sun, 
With autumn gales my race is run ; 
When will the hazel put forth its flowers, 
Or the grape ripen under my bowers? 
When will t le harvest or the hunter's moon. 
Turn my midnight into mid-noon ? 

I am all sere and yellow, 

And to my core mellow. 
The mast is dropping within my woods, 
The winter is lurking within my moods, 
And rustling of the withered leaf 
Is the constant music of my grief. 

To an unskillful rhymer the Muse thus spoke in prose : 

The moon no longer reflects the day, but rises to her ab- 
solute rule, and the husbandman and hunter acknowledge 
her for their mistress. Asters and golden-rods reign along 
the way, and the life-everlasting withers not. The fields 
are reaped and shorn of their pride, but an inward verdure 
still crowns them. The thistle scatters its down on the pool, 
and yellow leaves clothe the vine, and naught disturbs the 
serious life of men. But behind the sheaves, and under 
the sod, there lurks a ripe fruit, which the reapers have not 
gathered, the true harvest of theyear, which it bears forever, 
annually watering and maturing it, and man never severs 
the stalk which bears this palatable fruit. 

Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life, round 
which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. 
Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of 
the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be 



342 A WEEK, 

spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth. Who 
shall conceive what kind of roof the heavens might extend 
over him, what seasons minister to him, and what employ- 
ment dignify his life ! Only the convalescent raise the veil of 
nature. An immortality in his life would confer immortality 
on his abode. I'he winds should be his breath, the seasons 
his moods, and he should impart of his serenity to Nature 
herself. But such as we know him he is ephemeral like the 
scenery which surrounds him, and does not aspire to an en- 
during existence. When we come down into the distant 
village, visible from the mountain top, the nobler inhabi- 
tants with whom we peopled it have departed, and left only 
vermin in its desolate streets. It is the imagination of 
poets which puts those brave speeches into the mouths of 
their heroes. They may feign that Cato's last Vv'ords were 

The earth, the air, and seas I know, and all 
The joys and horrors of the-r peace and wars ; 
And now will view the Gods' state and the stars, 

but such are not the thoughts nor the destiny of common 
men. What is this heaven which they expect, if it is no bet- 
ter than they expect ? Are they prepared for a better than 
they can now imagine ? Here or nowhere is our heaven. 

Although we see celestial bodies move 
Above the earth, the earth we till and love. 

We can conceive of nothing more fair than something which 
we have experienced. " The remembrance of youth is a 
sigh." We linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our 
childhood, and they are half forgotten ere Vi'e have learned 
the language. We have need to be earth-born as well as 
heaven-born, yijyEveib, as was said of the Titans of old, or 
in a better sense than they. There have been heroes for 
whom this world seemed expressly prepared, as if creation 
had at last succeeded ; whose daily life was the stuff of which 
our dreams are made, and whose presence enhanced the 



FRIDAY. 343 

beauty and ampleness of Nature herself. Where tliey 

walked, 

Largior hie campos aether et lumine V2stit 
Purpureo : Solemque suum, sua sidera norunt. 

" Here a more copious air invests the fields, and clothes 
with purple light; and they know their own sun and their 
own stars." We love to hear some men speak, though we 
hear not what they say ; the very air they breathe is rich 
and perfumed, and the sound of their voices falls on the ear 
like the rustling of leaves or the crackling of the fire. 
They stand many deep. 'J'hey have the heavens for their 
abettors, as those who have never stf)od from under them, 
and they look at the stars with an answering ray. Their 
eyes are like glow-worms, and their motions graceful and 
flowing, as if a place were already found for them, like rivers 
flowing through valleys. l"he distinctions of morality, of 
right and wrong, sense and nonsense, are petty, and have 
lost their significance beside these pure primeval natures. 
When I consider the clouds stretched in stupendous masses 
across the sky, frowning with darkness, or glowing with 
downy light, or gilded with the rays of the setting sun, like 
the battlements of a city in the heavens, their grandeur ap-- 
pears thrown away on the meanness of my employment ; the 
drapery is altogether too rich for such poor acting. I am 
hardly worthy to be a suburban dweller outside those walls. 

Unless above himself he can 
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man ! 

With our music we would fain challenge transiently an- 
other and finer sort of intercourse than our daily toil per- 
mits. The strains come back to us amended in the echo, 
as when a friend reads our verse. Wliy have they so painted 
the fruits, and freighted them with such fragrance as to sat- 
isfy a more than animal appetite ? 

I asked the schoolman, his advice was free, 
But scored me out too intricate a way. 



344 A WEEK. 

These things imply, perchance, that we live on the verge of 
another and purer realm, from which these odors and sounds 
are wafted over to us. The borders of our plot are set with 
flowers, whose seeds were blown from more Elysian fields 
adjacent, 'i'hey are the pot-herbs of the gods. Some fairer 
fruit and sweeter fragrances wafted over to us, betray another 
realm's vicinity. 'Inhere, too, does Echo dwell, and there is 
the abutment of the rainbow's arch. 

A finer race and finer fed 
Feast and revel o'er our head, 
And we titmen are only able 
To catch the fragments from their table. 
Theirs is the fragrance of the fruits, 
While we consume the pulp and roots. 
What are the moments that we stand 
Astonished on the Olympian land ! 

We need pray for no higher heaven than the pure senses 
can furnish, di purely sensuous life. Our present senses are 
but the rudiments of what they are destined to become. 
We are comparatively deaf and dumb and blind, and 
vs^ithout smell or taste or feeling. Every generation makes 
the discovery, that its divine vigor has been dissipated, and 
each sense and faculty misapplied and debauched. The 
ears were made, not for such trivial uses as men are wont- 
to suppose, but to hear celestial sounds. The eyes were not 
made for such groveling uses as they are now put to and 
worn out by, but to behold beauty now invisible. May we 
not see God ? Are we to be put off and amused in this life, 
as it were with a mere allegory ? Is not Nature, rightly read, 
that of which she is commonly taken to be the .symbol merely ? 
When the common man looks into the sky, which he has 
not so much profaned, he thinks it less gross than the earth, 
and with reverence speaks of " the Heavens," but the seer 
will in the same sense speak of " the Earths," and his 
Father who is in them. " Did not he that made that which 



FRIDAY. 345 

is within, make that which is wit/ioiit, also?" What is it, 
then, to educate, but to develop these divine germs called 
the senses ? for individuals and states to deal magnanimous- 
ly with the rising generation, leading it not into temptation, 
— not teach the eye to squint, nor attune the ear to pro- 
fanity ? But where is the instructed teacher? Where are 
the normal schools ? 

A Hindoo sage said, " As a dancer, having exhibited her- 
self to the spectator, desists from the dance, so does Nature 

desist, having manifested herself to soul . Nothing, in 

my opinion, is more gentle than Nature ; once aware of 
having been seen, she does not again expose herself to the 
gaze of soul." 

It is easier to discover another such a new world as Co- 
lumbus did, than to go within one fold of this which we ap- 
pear to know so well ; the land is lost sight of, the compass 
varies, and mankind mutiny ; and still history accumulates 
like rubbish before the portals of nature. But there is only 
necessary a moment's sanity and sound senses, to teach us 
that there is a nature behind the ordinary, in which we 
have only some vague pre-emption right and western reserve 
as yet. We live on the outskirts of that region. Carved 
wood, and floating boughs, and sunset skies, are all that we 
know of it. We are not to be imposed on by the longest 
spell of weather. Let us not, my friends, be wheedled and 
cheated into good beheavior to earn the salt of our eternal 
porridge, whoever they are that attempt it. Let us wait a lit- 
tle, and not purchase any clearing here, trusting that richer 
bottoms will soon be put up. It is but thin soil where we 
stand ; I have felt my roots in a richer ere this. I have 
seen a bunch of violets in a glass vase, tied loosely with a 
straw, which reminded me of myself. 

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied 
By a chance bond together, 



346 A WEEK. 



Dangling this way and that, their links 
Were made so loose and wide, 
Methinks, 
For milder weather. 



A bunch of violets without their roots, 
And sorrel intermixed, 
Encircled by a wisp of straw 
Once coiled about their shoots, 
The law 
By which I'm fixed. 

A nosegay which Time clutched from out 
Those fair Elysian fields, 
With weeds and broken stems, in haste, 
Doth make the rabble rout 

That waste 
The day he yields. 

And here I bloom for a short hour unseen, 
Drinking my juices up, 
With no root in the land 

To keep my branches green, 

But stand 

In a bare cup. 

Some tender buds were left upon my stem 
In mimicry of life, 
But ah ! the children will not know, 
Till time has withered them. 
The wo 
With which they're rife. 

But now T see I was not plucked for naught. 
And after in life's vase 
Of glass set while I might survive, 
But by a kind hand brought 
Alive 
To a strange place. 



3 



FRIDAY. 347 

That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours, 
And by another year. 
Such as God I<no\vs, with freer air, 
More fruits and fairer flowers 
Will bear, 
While I droop here. 

This world has many rings, lilce Saturn, and we live now 
on the outmost of them all. None can say deliberately that 
he inhabits the same sphere, or is contemporary with the 
flower which his hands have plucked, and though his feet 
may seem to crush it, inconceivable spaces and ages 
separate them, and perchance there is no danger that he 
will hurt it. What, after all, do the botanists know ? Our 
lives should go between the lichen and the bark. The eye 
may see for the hand, but not for the mind. We are still 
being born, and have as yet but a dim vision of sea and 
land, sun, moon and stars, and shall not see clearly till after 
nine days at least. That is a pathetic inquiry among trav- 
elers and geographers after the site of ancient Troy. It is 
not near where they think it is. When a thing is decayed 
and gone, how indistinct must be the place it occupied ! 

The anecdotes of modern astronomy affect me in the 
same way as do those faint revelations of the Real which 
are vouchsafed to men from time to time, or rather from 
eternity to eternity. W'hen I remember the history of 
that faint light in our firmament, which we call Venus, 
which ancient men regarded, and which most modern men 
still regard, as a bright spark attached to a hollow sphere 
revolving about our earth, but which we have discovered to 
be another world in itself, — how Copernicus, reasoning long 
and patiently about the matter, predicted confidently con- 
cerning it, before yet the telescope had been invented: that 
if ever men came to see it more clearly than they did then, 
they would discover that it had phases like our moon, and 
that within a century after his death the telescope was in- 



348 A WEEK. 

vented, and prediction verified, by Galileo, — I am not with- 
out hope:;that we may, even here and now, obtam some ac- 
curate Hiformation concerning that Other World which 
the instinct of manlvind has so long predicted. Indeed, all 
that we call science as well as all that we call poetry, is a 
particle of such information, accurate as far as it goes, 
though it be but to the confines of the truth. If we can 
reason so accurately and with such wonderful confirmation 
of our reasoning, respecting so-called material objects and 
events infinitely removed beyond the range of our natural 
vision, so that the mind hesitates to trust its calculations 
even when they are confirmed by observation, why may not 
our speculations .penetrate as far into the immaterial starry 
system, of which the former is but the outward and visible 
type ? Surely, we are provided with senses as well fitted 
to penetrate the spaces of the real, the substantial, the 
eternal, as these outward are to penetrate the material uni- 
verse. Veias, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates, Christ, Shake- 
speare, Swedenborg, — these are some of our astronomers. 

There are perturbations in our orbits produced by the 
influence of outlying spheres, and no astronomer has ever 
yet calculated the elements of that undiscovered world 
which produces them. I perceive in the common train of 
my thoughts a natural and uninterrupted sequence, each 
implying the next, or, if interruption occurs, it is occasioned 
by a new object being presented to my senses. But a steep 
and sudden, and by these means unaccountable transition, 
is that from a comparatively narrow and partial, what is 
called common sense view of things, to an infinitely ex- 
panded and liberating one, from seeing things as men de- 
scribe them, to seeing them as men cannot describe them. 
This implies a sense which is not common, but rare in the 
wisest man's experience ; which is sensible or sentient of 
more than common. 

In what inclosures does the astronomer loiter ! His skies 



FRIDAY. 349 

are shoal, and imagination, like a thirsty traveler, pants to 
be through their desert. The roving mind impatiently 
bursts the fetters of astronomical orbits, like cobwebs in a 
corner of its universe, and launches. itself to where distance 
fails to follow, and law, such as science has discovered, 
grows weak and weary. The mind knows a distance and a 
space of which all those sums combined do not make a unit 
of measure, — the interval between that which appears, and 
that which is. I know that there are many stars, I know 
that they are far enough off, bright enough, steady enough 
in their orbits, — but what are they all worth? They are 
more waste land in the West, — star territory, — to be made 
slave States, perchance, if we colonize them. I have inter- 
est but for six feet of star, and that interest is transient. 
Then farewell to all ye bodies, such as I have known ye. 

Every man, if he is wise, will stand on such bottom as 
will sustain him, and if one giavitates downward more 
strongly than another, he will not venture on those meads 
where the latter walks securely, but rather leave the cran- 
berries which grow there unraked by himself. Perchance, 
some spring a higher freshet will float them within his reach, 
though they may be watery and frost-bitten by that time. 
Such shriveled berries I have seen in many a poor man's 
garret, aye, in many a church bin and state coffer ; and with 
a little water and heat they swell again to their original size 
and fairness, and added sugar enough, stead mankind for 
sauce to this world's dish. 

What is called common sense is excellent in its depart- 
ment, and as invaluable as the virtue of conformity in the 
army and navy, — for there must be subordination, — but 
uncommon sense, that sense which is common only to the 
wisest, is as much more excellent as it is more rare. Some 
aspire to excellence in the subordinate department, and 
may God speed them. What Fuller says of masters of 
colleges is universally applicable, that " a little alloy of dull- 



35° A WEEK. 

ness in a master of a college makes him fitter to manage 
secular affairs." 

He that wants faith, and apprehends a grief 
Because he wants it, hath a true belief ; 
And he that grieves because his grief's so small. 
Has a true grief, and the best Faith of all. 

Or be encouraged by this other poet's strain : 

By them went Fido, marshal of the field : 

Weak was his mother when she gave him day ; 
And he at first a sick and weakly child, 

As e'er with tears welcomed the sunny ray ; 

Yet when more years afford more growth and might, 
A champion stout he was, and puissant knight, 
As ever came in field, or shone in armor bright. 

Mountains he flings in seas with mighty hand ; 

Stops and turns back the sun's impetuous course ; 
Nature breaks Nature's laws at his command ; 

No force of Hell or Heaven withstands his force ; 
Events to come yet many ages hence. 
He present makes, by wondrous prescience ; 
Proving the senses blind by being blind to sense. 

" Yesterda}^ at dawn," says Hafiz, " God delivered me 
from all worldly affliction ; and amidst the gloom of night 
presented me with the water of immortality." 

In the life of Sadi, by Dowlat Shah, occurs this sentence : 
'' The eagle of the immaterial soul of Shaikh Sadi shook 
from his plumage the dust of his body." 

Thus thoughtfully we were rowing homeward to find 
some autumnal work to do, and help on the revolution of 
the seasons. Perhaps Nature would condescend to make 
use of us even without our knowledge, as when we help to 
scatter her seeds in our walks, and carry burrs and cockles 
on our clothes from field to field. 



FRIDAY. 351 

All things are current found 
On earthly ground. 
Spirits and elements 
Have their descents. 

Night and day, year on year, 
High and low. far and near, 
These are our own aspects, 
These are our own regrets. 

Ye gods of the shore, 
Who abide evermore, 
I see your far headland. 
Stretching on either hand ; 

I hear the sweet evening sounds 
From your undecaying grounds ; 
Cheat me no more with time, 
Take me to your clime. 

As it grew later in the afternoon, and we rowed leisurely 
up the gentle stream, shut in between fragrant and blooming 
banks, where we had first pitched our tent, and drew nearer 
to the fields where our lives had passed, we seemed to detect 
the hues of our native sky in the southwest horizon. Tlie 
sun was just setting behind the edge of a wooded hill, so 
rich a sunset as would never have ended but forsome reason 
unknown to men, and to be marked with brighter colors than 
ordinary in the scroll of time. Though the shadows of the 
hills were beginning to steal over the stream, the whole 
river valley undulated with mild light, purer and more mem- 
orable than the noon. For so day bids farewell even to sol- 
itary vales uninhabited by man. Two blue-herons, Arde.i 
herodias, with their long and slender limbs relieved against 
the sk}', were seen traveling high over our heads, — their 
lofty and silent flight, as they were wending their way at 
evening, surely not to alight in any marsh on the earth's 
surface, but, perchance, on the other side of our atmosphere, 
a symbol for the ages to study, whether impressed upon the 



352 A WEEK. 

sky or sculptured amid the hieroglyphics of Egypt. Bound 
to some northern meadow, they held on their stately, station- 
ary flight, like the storks in the picture, and disappeared at 
length behind the clouds. Dense flocks of blackbirds were 
winging their way along the river's course, as if on a 
short evening pilgrimage to some shrine of theirs, or to cele- 
brate so fair a sunset. 

Therefore, as doth the pilgrim, whom the night 

Hastens darlcly to imprison on his way. 
Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright 
Of what's yet left thee of life's wasting day : 

Thy sun posts westward, passed is thy morn, 
And twice it is not given thee to be born. 

The sun-setting presumed all men at leisure, and in a 
contemplative mood ; but the farmer's boy only whistled the 
more thoughtfully, as he drove his cows home from pasture, 
and the teamster refrained from cracking his whip, and 
guided his team with a subdued voice. The last vestiges of 
daylight at length disappeared, and as we rowed silently along 
with our backs toward home through the darkness, only a 
few stars being visible, we had little to say, but sat absorbed 
in thought, or in silence listened to the monotonous sound 
of our oars, a sort of rudimental music, suitable for the ear 
of Night and the acoustics of her dimly lighted halls ; 

PulsDe referunt ad sidera valles, 

and the valleys echoed the sound to the stars. 

As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were 
reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught 
that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit 
on mankind. It is recorded in the Chronicle of Bernaldez, 
that in Columbus's first voyage the natives " pointed toward 
the heavens, making signs that they believed tliat there was 
all power and holiness." We have reason to be grateful for 
celestial phenomena, for they chiefly answer to the ideal in 



FRIDAY. 353 

man. The stars are distant and unobtrusive, but bright and 
enduring as our fairest and most memorable experiences. 
" Let the immortal depth of your soul lead you, but earn- 
estly extend your eyes upward." 

As the truest society approaches always nearer to soli- 
tude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into silence. 
Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. 
She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear out- 
wardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible 
frame-work and foil. All sounds are her servants and pur- 
veyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a 
rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after. They are 
so far akin to silence, that they are but bubbles on her sur- 
face, which straightway burst, an evidence of the strength 
and prolificness of the undercurrent ; a faint utterance of 
silence, and then only agreeable to our auditory nerves 
when they contrast themselves with and relieve the 
former. In proportion as they do this, and are heighteners 
and intensifiers of the silence, they are harmony and purest 
melody. 

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull dis- 
courses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, 
as welcome after satiety as after disappointment ; that 
background which the painter may not daub, be he master 
or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may 
have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable 
asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality dis- 
turb us. 

The orator puts off his individuality, and is then most 
eloquent when most silent. He listens while he speaks, 
and is a hearer along with his audience. Who has not 
hearkened to her infinite din ? She is Truth's speaking 
trumpet, the sole oracle, the true Delphi and Dodona 
which kings and courtiers would do v.'ell to consult, nor will 



354 



A WEEK. 



the}' be baulked by an ambiguous answer. For through her 
all revelations have been made, and just in proportion as 
men have consulted her oracle within, they havex)btained a 
clear insight, and their age has been marked as an en- 
lightened one. But as often as they have gone gadding 
abroad to a strange Delphi and her mad priestess, their age 
has been dark and leaden. Such were garrulous and noisy 
eias, which no longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or 
silent and melodious era is ever sounding and resounding 
in the ears of men. 

A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent 
Ivres are struck. We not unfrequently refer the interest 
which belongs to our own unwritten sequel, to the written 
and comparatively lifeless body of the work. Of all books 
this sequel is the most indispensable part. It should be 
the author's aim to say once and emphatically, " He said," 
'■'■ fVv/' ^"- This is the most the book maker can attain to. 
If he make his volume a mole whereon the waves of silence 
may break, it is well. 

It were vain for me to endeavor to interpret the silence. 
She cannot be done into English. For si.K thousand years 
men have translated her with what fidelity belonged to 
each, and still she is little better than a sealed book. A 
man may run on confidently for a time, thinking he has her 
under his thumb, and shall one day exhaust her; but he too 
must at last be silent, and men remark only how brave a 
beginning he made ; for when he at length dives into her, 
so vast is the disproportion of the told to the untold, that 
the former will seem but the bubble on the surface where 
he disappeared. Nevertheless, we will go on, like those 
Chinese cliff swallows, feathering our nests with the froth, 
which may one day be bread of life to such as dwell by the 
seashore. 

We had made about fifty miles this day with sail and oar. 



FRIDAY. 355 

and now, far in the evening', our boat was grating against 
the bulruslies of its native j^ort, aixl its keel recognized the 
Concord mud, where some semblance of its outline was still 
preserved in the flattened flags which had scaice yet erected 
themselves since our departure ; and we leaped gladly on 
shore, drawing it up, and fastening it to the wild ap])le tree, 
whose stem still bore the mark which its chain had worn in 
the chafing of the spring freshets. 



THE END. 



i 



n 



